I'd say that 'traffic plummeting' affect is mostly due to the clusterfuck that is 99 in both directions now because of the construction issues. The slow down two lane constrict and the stadium and the final hump past the West Seattle Bridge has cause me to use surface streets to get in and out of town. I only do so because travel times and traffic are only slightly better than staying on 99. You get rid of the viaduct all together and all those people who use it now will have no where to go but to surface streets making the entire thing fall to shit. No thanks.

I'm with @1. I don't drive often but when I do, I avoid Aurora like the goddamn plague.

I wonder how broken Bertha will have to be for officials to give up the whole thing? Would they consider dismantling her and submerging a whole new machine? Maybe ST (and it's tunnel building expertise) can turn it into a new Link subway line…that would be neat-o.

@1,

You basically can't use 99 between 3 pm and 7 pm southbound. Fortunately I work late, so I usually miss the clusterfuck (unless there's an accident/broken down car on the Viaduct, and don't get me started about how poorly Seattle handles those situations).

It's a sad state of affairs when driving down 2nd to the eventual entry onto the West Seattle Bridge at the ass-end of SODO is faster than using an in-city freeway. And, no, I'd rather not share that commute with the other 62,000 drivers who currently use the Viaduct.

When the viaduct is closed traffic is terrible. It can take hours to get from west seattle and I-5 is generally backed up badly. Might be a coincidence.

My impression was that the tunnel will serve the Seattle Center well and that it is too early to tell whether Ballard and Magnolia residents would use it in great numbers.

You put another arena in SODO and you'll see tunnel usage spike from drivers on 520 trying, just to Mercer to reach the tunnel in order to avoid the clusterfuck of I-5.

As a temp for Microsoft, I would often see people needing a third person for the car pool lane, simply because they didn't want to miss the tip off.

Pretty amusing simulation. Bet the people who got to work on that had some fun! Where's the sequel, when rampaging mobs and anarchists claim a gutted downtown as an independent country?

I say keep building the tunnel. When it's finished close down I5 through Seattle and redirect traffic bypassing the city to I405

This East Magnolia resident doesn't see himself using the tunnel very much. As it is, whenever I take 99 south to visit my aunt in Beacon Hill, I get on at the Elliott Avenue onramp (and then get off at the stadiums). Heading east to Aurora just doesn't make sense for me now; I want to avoid Denny and Mercer.

I suppose that I could, instead of taking 15th and then Elliott, take Nickerson and Westlake, and get on that way. But I don't know if that would actually save me time. I might just decide to take the Alaskan Way surface street in that case.

#1 has it right. The viaduct construction along with the replacement of the wooden bridge on 99 south of the west seattle bridge has really made 99 a bad option much of the time.

In addition, you have the new 4th ave off ramp from the west seattle bridge that makes for a good alternative.

And this quote is complete BS: "Seattle has seamlessly adapted to losing the first 48,000 trips on the Viaduct. No one even noticed. " Lot's of us noticed that traffic getting into/out of/through seattle has gotten a lot tougher.

Funny!

Had to drive to West Seattle during the Seahawks parade. Despite warnings of armageddon on traffic reports, Aurora was completely empty.

Cue every West Seattle resident who says the roads are crowded at rush hour and we can't live without a tunnel.

Nope. All the vast majority of us want is an easy and fast way to get downtown, versus the ludicrously constricted choke points we have now. Our bridge as of 2012 carries 100,000+ trips daily. The capacity of our bridge--barring accidents, which the city has struggled with efficiently and cleanly disposing of for some time--isn't the problem. It's the end points of the bridge. A single lane cross over to I-5 north and south. A single lane cross over to SR99. Two single lane exits to the deepest depths of SODO on 1st and 4th. The bridge isn't terrible; it's the ending of the bridge and daily policing of it that sucks.

I'm sure there are some of us who go past downtown who look forward to the tunnel, and some of us are working on a survey to see where people are actually going for the West Seattle Transportation Coalition (among other things) but anecdotally I can safely say it's not a big deal, so far.

Here's something you probably did not know: we're actually double screwed right now because of Bertha's scenario. In exchange for all of the disruption on our egress from the peninsula because of Bertha and tunnel construction, WSDOT by order of the state had to throw us mitigation money, to keep our commutes time-wise close to where they were--a couple million a year to buy more Metro service. Without it, a prior 30 minute West Seattle to downtown bus ride would be 60 minutes. As it is, it's already about 10-20 minutes longer each way. Olympia in their infinite wisdom only funded that mitigation money... until June 2014.

Why? Bertha/tunnel construction was supposed to be functionally done by then on the south corridor, that we pass by. So, since Bertha and the tunnel are so far behind, and that money is about to run out, West Seattle--on top of the 17% Metro cuts we all will get if the County's Plan B fails--will get an extra additional 10% in cuts to our Metro service, back to pre-Bertha levels, while the impact from all that construction/disruption is still there. Later, there was supposed to be mitigation money as well for north Seattle folks, when the trauma of the construction starts to disrupt up that way by Aurora.

If Olympia doesn't nail this down for us by March 2014, Metro has to start cutting back our service in June. Our already +10 to +20 minute commutes since construction began are estimated to go up by another +15 to +20 minutes we've been told. To put it bluntly, I've talked to more than a handful of West Seattle commuters pleased with the tunnel. There may be more. I sure haven't met them yet, and Olympia and WSDOT are poised to screw us over a little more than everyone else. But no one reports on that, because West Seattle.

But seriously, no offense? The city doesn't revolve around Capital Hill and City Hall. You guys kick ass, but you'd kick a lot more ass (and get more web traffic and hits) rabble rousing issues in the outlying neighborhoods, especially as those issues are going to start playing a major role in all City Hall politics starting officially in Spring 2015 with the primaries, if they haven't already.

No one is winning District 1/West Seattle/South Park or getting a decent piece of our 98,000 residents voting for them without being absolutely ruthless on transportation problems for us, and city-wide. Insert {$ISSUE} for each of the other districts. Probably transportation for D6/Ballard. Probably social justice for D2/Southeast, and so on.

FWIW, one of the reasons for decreased ridership on 99 is the damn Mercer Mess construction that has thrown a "woopsy" curve into 99 just north of the tunnel. That slows things down like a son of a bitch so it's not surprising people are choosing alternate routes. That supports your observation that we seem to have absorbed it just fine, thank you.

An SDOT briefing the other day revealed that the AWV was deemed capable of withstanding 1 inch of settlement related to DBT construction. Before Bertha has even crossed under the AWV, it has already settled 4/10 of an inch. If it settles another .6" if/when Bertha gets going again, I hope they have the guts to shut the damn thing down. Every day it remains up is a testament that we value traffic flow more than people's lives. If an earthquake hits, what politician would want to say, "But car commuters in 2013 got where they were going 10 minutes faster"?

@11: I chuckled/gagged when I read that as well. Always entertaining when The Stranger thinks they have the pulse of motorist sentiment in Seattle.

There's also likely to be more than a few people like me who've just written off the south part of the city (or the north, if you live south), and never visit it anymore because of the hassles. We just make do in our own area (something Capitol Hillers have always been good at). Transit's a great option if you have six hours to spare. I'll still use the viaduct, just not as much. When it comes down, it'll all be over -- no way I'm paying to ride in that godforsaken tunnel (well, once, just to see it).

Maybe we need to put some more ferry docks in. West Seattle to Ballard would be nice. Bypass all the bullshit altogether.

@21

West Seattle to Ballard would be nice. Bypass all the bullshit altogether.

From Seacrest Park in West Seattle to the west end of the park at the Ballard Locks would be awesome. It would also de facto connect major touristy areas--Alki, our beach, and massive waterfront area, and Ballard with the Locks, old Ballard, and just down the road Golden Gardens. Hell, from the Ballard Locks you're only a short walk from Discovery Park in Magnolia, which is one of our most under utilized city treasures since it's so out of the way.

@8,

Unless I'm confusing him with another Stranger staffer, Dominic doesn't have a driver's license.

@13,

By the time the parade started, everyone was where they wanted to be. Did you see the Seneca exit? It was a clusterfuck, even a half hour after the parade started.

I just went to Dominic's own article that he linked to here, and that article was written more than two years ago.

Dominic, are you going to report on the fact that WSDOT has already rolled back the proposed toll to try to get people to actually use the tunnel? In light of that change, do you think maybe you should revise the article that was published on July 20, 2011?

I don't drive, and I've noticed how much worse traffic is on 99 in the mornings because of the construction. Whenever I take an express bus downtown, I am super thankful that there is that bus only lane for almost a mile of the construction lane reductions. I am sure that it saves 10 minutes a day relative to being in a car.

Things are definitely worse.

Seattle adapted to losing 48,000 trips on the viaduct largely because Metro received a big grant to increase service around the construction area and did so successfully (33,000 additional bus trips over the same period). That this grant is going to expire soon turns out to be one of the main factors behind Metro's current threats of service cutbacks. Have fun with that.

yeah, let's just chuck that entire seawall-replacement schedule out the window and move the viaduct demo up. that doesn't sound like it will be hard at all.

Nope @23 15th and 99 were ghost roadways during the parade. It was like Christmas morning. No traffic at all. You could hear yourself breathe leaving your house.

If people in West Seattle wanted to be part of Seattle they would live in Seattle. We're spending $2 billion on a tunnel to cater to people who don't even like us. I don't get it.

@29 -

West Seattle was annexed in 1907, meaning it has been inside the City of Seattle for over a hundred years. When did you get here?

There is no logic to this whatsoever.

If the Viaduct is a hazard to life and limb, then the first order of business would have been razing it, regardless of what replaced it.

@29 @30 and "West" Seattle came before Seattle.

"Seamlessly...?? Try driving I-5 at any time other than 6 AM Sunday. And as someone else said, loss of transit later this year (because no doubt the voters will not go for what the County asks) will just make it all much more fun.

@30

Exactly! Not only do they want us to give them a tunnel, they make themselves into the victim here and accuse Seattle of imperialism! The nerve. Nobody here in Seattle would show that kind of cheek. They're not like us.

And. And! West Seattle doesn't even want this tunnel to get to Seattle. They want it to get around Seattle. To go somewhere else. It's insulting.

@34 -

Wrong again. I attended the city-hosted planning meetings downtown and in West Seattle. Judging from the public testimony, there was no question that West Seattle residents were overwhelmingly against the proposed waterfront tunnel, both as a squandering of taxpayer money and as an incompetent design with no exits or entrances connecting to downtown Seattle.

@29 We do like you. We collectively all approved the monorail between West Seattle and Ballard (which would be up and running as we speak) and could have done away with this tunnel nonsense. I can't tell you how much I would like to get to WS from time to time. As it is, I say, fuck it, it's West Seattle (see: places nearby but too difficult to get to).

Also, I like the sentiment of Supreme Ruler (rare). If the viaduct was so dangerous it would have been razed forthwith, if the whole of the reasoning for this is safety. I personally don't understand why the viaduct can't be retrofitted. They retrofitted a shit ton of buildings in Pioneer Square and SODO after the quake. I do not doubt that this structure can be retrofitted as well, understanding that this is a major highway and the engineering must be different -- but it could be done. Seems far easier. The tunnel is a scam and everyone agrees. I don't know anyone in town who is down with the tunnel. Anyone.

Another thing. They were certainly able to retrofit the Magnolia Bridge and the 45th Street viaduct. So we can see it can be done. Both having foundations in tide-flats and/or swampland. 45th's structure was essentially wood until several years ago.

@36 Richard Conlin, Tim Burgess, Sally Clarke, Sally Bagshaw, Bruce Harrell, Nick Licata, Jean Godden, and Tom Rasmussen are all on the record of supporting the tunnel very much. They voted for it.

@35

Unemployed kooks are the only ones who show up for those things. Stop judging whole cities like West Seattle based on who has time to shout into a public microphone.

@6- Do you really live in Seattle? You have never been able to get on Aurora from Mercer and carpool lanes require only two people.

Why did Sawant not run on transit as her main plank? And why did she still get elected?

Someone who has never seen a map could look at the map of Seattle and tell you immediately that they geography makes it a perfect candidate for a mass-transit based system.

And I'm not finished with the politics yet-- The state/city are trying to protect people, so the way to do that is to turn the viaduct into a bumper to bumper parking lot twice a day, five times a week.

I'd get down there to work on Bertha in a deep diving suit myself if the tunnel wasn't going to be a toll tunnel for mostly cars. On second thought, keep the toll, fine, whatever. Hell, make the tunnel cars only, a bus-free paradise for texas refugees who want to shoot it out in their 4 x 4's. As long as you put a sensible transit system into place in the rest of the city.

Yes, of course we need something to replace the viaduct. Again, look at a map. But there are so many ways to solve this problem when you open your eyes to two realities:

1) Transportation in a city actually is a system, and we have to approach it as such.

2) Our political system does not allow us to do so.

Why did Sawant not run on transit as her main plank? And why did she still get elected?

Someone who has never seen a map could look at the map of Seattle and tell you immediately that they geography makes it a perfect candidate for a mass-transit based system.

And I'm not finished with the politics yet-- The state/city are trying to protect people, so the way to do that is to turn the viaduct into a bumper to bumper parking lot twice a day, five times a week.

I'd get down there to work on Bertha in a deep diving suit myself if the tunnel wasn't going to be a toll tunnel for mostly cars. On second thought, keep the toll, fine, whatever. Hell, make the tunnel cars only, a bus-free paradise for texas refugees who want to shoot it out in their 4 x 4's. As long as you put a sensible transit system into place in the rest of the city.

Yes, of course we need something to replace the viaduct. Again, look at a map. But there are so many ways to solve this problem when you open your eyes to two realities:

1) Transportation in a city actually is a system, and we have to approach it as such.

2) Our political system does not allow us to do so.

Ummm, have you seen 1st Ave S and I-5 lately? Fucking mess at rush hour. Can't see it from the Pike/Pine/12ave corridor though.

62,000 vehicles per day on the viaduct, although much less than the previous 109,000 per day is still ENORMOUS traffic volume. Before you make these assertions, journalistic prudence should lead you to checking on the current car counts on Alaskan Way through the waterfront, which is expected to increase exponentially in any case. Get than number, and compare it to 62,000. In fact, get current car counts for Alaskan, 1st and 4th, combine them, and then compare that number to 62,000. It would be really commendable of you if you would check these figures and then attach it as an addendum to your story.

Current/recent Alaskan Way traffic count is ~12,000 expected to triple to ~36,000 after the AWV is closed down and the new Alaskan Way boulevard finished. Even more troubling is the increased traffic on Mercer & Denny Way, already more traffic than those corridors can handle. The nearly complete Mercer East rebuild is an undeniable improvement, but MercerWest adds too much traffic between I-5 through Queen Anne and the steep, hazardous hillclimb of Mercer Place.

The tunnel option that displaces the least traffic from the SR99 corridor (and manages displaced traffic best) is the 'stacked' Cut-Cover/Tunnel/Seawall in the FEIS. Wsdot rigged its rejection the same way their Surface/Transit/Fix I-5 option was rigged for rejection.

A bore tunnel is absolutely unsuitable for the dangerously unstable waterfront soil conditions. Wsdot thugs knows this and with their developer associates expect historic Pioneer Square buildings to be condemned, demolished and 'profitably' replaced. And when replacement building foundations are likewise undermined by the bore tunnel presence, profitably condemn, demolish and replace them again. A major earthquake could topple vulnerable buildings too suddenly to avoid mass murder, but that's just fine with Big Business conservatives who consider Seattle a liberal cesspool to be flushed away Holocaust-style. "Ya, der Nordic mind ist suepeereor."

Thank you wells. You said it well!