Comments on Lurching Toward Progress on 520

They're concerned about disturbing a Native American burial ground with a tunnel under Lake Washington?

Since when did cement overshoes become a Native American burial tradition?

April Fools' Day - perfect

We already are the Green Building Capitol of the World.

Oh, wait, I thought you were including the UW in Seattle.

Never mind ...

Whatever it is better be real nice, so all those cars that are stopped in traffic on it will be able to enjoy their mornings and evenings there. Because unless they're planning on adding a couple of lanes to I-5, as well as Lake Washington Boulevard, Montlake Boulevard, Sand Point Way, and Roanoke, there's not going to be anyplace for the increased bridge traffic to go. It doesn't matter how big a pipe you have if the nipple on the end is still small.

Fnarf, $4.4B can't buy a couple of big nipples?

At least they're no longer bisecting my beloved Marsh Island.

That alternative, known as the "East Montlake Interchange" or, more ominously, "Option K," would combine two previously discussed options (G and J, for those keeping score)

A few more proposals and they'll run out of letters in the alphabet.

How the hell could a drawbridge on-ramp be a good idea?

A tunnel sounds a little pie in the sky but we'll see.

A tunnel sounds far, far more realistic than a drawbridge. A drawbridge may be cheaper, and less likely to disturb native burial grounds (seriously?), but cutting off the flow of traffic every time a ship needs to get by will KILL traffic on that ramp, and so slow up all of 520 westbound and Montlake eastbound.

@4 - so, you're one of the two ex-boyfriends of that pretty young woman at Dan's 2/14 event?

Look, to take your pipe analogy (wrong concept for a floating bridge, which is a platform structure that covers the equivalents of boats), if eight of the "pipes" are road lanes, it would not increase capacity due to I-405 and I-5.

But if four of the eight lanes are separated light rail (added later) with a capacity of more than 20 people per car/truck equivalent (2 lanes) and Bus/HOV only (2 lanes) - and those lanes are separated on either end (light rail with a tunnel, Bus/HOV with a flyby), then your net capacity increased by a factor of more than 10.

A lot more.

@10: Don't forget that rail lanes need super-special ramps - spirals, less than 6% grade, those rail transition / expansion joint thingies, etc.

It's not hard, especially if you drop the two lanes at the lakefront.

520: the microcosm of Washington state "piss-poor" decision making.

The mantra should not be about a "couple of things." This should be about the whole corridor. That's it. All of these other details are the usual roadblocking that is encountered with these public projects.

Just do it. Fix the viaduct too. Does anyone actually have the nuts to pragmatically take care of these urgent, giant problems?