Comments on Option 9 From Outer Space: The Big Box Option

I dub the Frank Chopp plan "Park on a Stick!"

:-)

I gotta tell you, driving or no, it's a pretty amazing sight. That being said, all rebuild plans include a much higher wall that will prevent you from seeing it.

To make this a more practical (cheap) plan, just lop one deck off of it. Room for six to eight lanes underneath, streetcar and park on top.

I like this idea! I'd just want to recommend one MINOR change: we take this design exactly like it is, but we dig a 20-foot-deep trench lower the whole thing into it.

How's that sound, Mr. Chopp?

Maybe it's just me, but when I saw the top level of this, those structures that I assume are lights looked like light rail cable assemblies.

Which raises interesting possibilities...even though I oppose a new viaduct and realize even Plan 9 is as unaffordable as the tunnel.

I don't understand the drawing. How do you get from one side to the other? The park deck doesn't connect on the other side. Is it a surface street with stoplights at grade, then a level of freeway above?

That's right, I can't believe so many people don't know that the views from a new mega-viaduct will be views of a concrete wall.

I think Frank Chopp's new option will actually be a monorail.

Fnarf, I see two ways to interpret this. Either it's truly enclosed on both levels and pedestrians can only cross at the park, or it is a surface highway with intersections, an enclosed freeway above (possibly with downtown exits, and possibly for through traffic only). In either case, the top level is a park.

So how do the pedestrians get across? It seems like this would need stairs or elevators on the waterfront side of the park, which might simply not be pictured. Also, I can't imagine that the small pedestrian space on the waterfront side, dominated by looming concrete pillars much closer than the current viaduct, will do much to encourage revitalization of the waterfront.

I applaud the desire to think more creatively, but I have yet to see a highway proposal for the corridor that makes sense.

In the long run, you'd just encourage the pier owners to build up to meet the park deck.

#7 - Tim - my kingdom for a tunnel - Ceis says only taller cars will be able to see the view because new regulation require solid barriers - I don't look through the guard rail now, I look over it in a regular car - and Ceis is the proof we will have no view, ha. If tunnel lite could get a variance to run without shoulders, I'm sure we can get railings that are low enough to see over - just another tunnel supporters' canard -

But not an issue if we just fix what we've got and build surface and transit for the future.

I think we could imagine a more complete version of this plan, including a side view and convenient jumping platforms on the waterfront side of the park. That way people could get across.

Here is my interpretation, including advertising revenue to help defray the cost!

#9: So, we build an elevated highway, then raise everything around it. It's an interesting way to end up with a tunnel without having to dig anything. Still, I think the lack of access to the actual water (except for a 40-50 foot high dive) wouldn't work very well in practice.

Maybe we could have a Capitol Hill Regrade to fill in the surrounding area with dirt and build a sloping beach to a new waterfront farther out into the bay. Or maybe the idea is that catastrophic climate change will raise the water level to the park elevation in a few decades anyway.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/304258_viaduct19ww.html

Gregoire "refused to back away from her position that the state must commence the new elevated highway."

Thanks you Erica etc etc. Your un-critical acceptance of the convenient lie is coming home to roost.

Won't fly. It doesn't adequately take into account access to the other Washington State highway in the immediate area...the Washington State Ferry at Coleman Dock.

All that being said, why do I have a nagging feeling that this soon to
be proposed and "pleasing to the eye" edifice will be something quite different than what Feit is suggesting.....?

Anybody know a good Democrat who'd like to run in a Gubernatorial Primary? I've just about effing had it with Queen Gregoire...

If that's the case, then this is the most pedestrian-hostile thing I've ever seen.

Aside from the cable-stay bridge, has there been any pedestrian-friendly proposal?

Any rebuild or repair still makes time spent at the waterfront subject to an unpleasant roar and sooty air.

In some ways the surface option makes things worse as cars, pedestrians and cyclists will all be competing for the same space.

Even the tunnel maintains the surface-level SR99 that cuts off South Lake Union from Queen Anne.

If (and I refuse to concede this point outright) maintaining car-carrying capacity at the waterfront is absolutely critical, we should shove it off over the harbor and remove the whole ugly route from downtown.

Oh, just repair the thing and lets move on.

Surface option plus lots of pedestration overpass bridges. Not terribly difficult, is it?

Some questions:

1) Did Frank Chopp draw up this plan personally himself?

2) What about options 1 through 8? How come there are no links to any of these options? Hmmm?

3) If there are 9 options for the viaduct, isn't that about eight more options than what surface + transit supporters have come up with?

wacker drive

AEXIA Wrote:
"Surface option plus lots of pedestration overpass bridges. Not terribly difficult, is it?"

Not difficult if your idea of a pedestrian friendly waterfront which is separated from the city by 4-to 6 lanes of boulevarded, dense motor vehicle traffic and paralled bay an ancient trolley and Burlington Northern freight and passenger trains.

The idea is to reclaim the land for parks, homes, business and transit, and NOT to completely surrender it to motor vehicles. This can only be realized by designing and building a cable stayed bay bridge.

---Jensen

For the record, current Viaduct barrier walls are 36 inches. Federal safety requirements are 32 inches.

WSDOT hasn't yet said how high the barrier will be.

Frank Chopp has gone insane. Please take his seat away from him so he can stop trying to kill the waterfront.

If you don't live here, @24, you don't get to vote here.

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