http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/11/21/the_surface_options_for_compa Comments On: The Surface Options: For Comparison by Erica C. Barnett en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:30:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:13:11 -0800 The Stranger And Ballard High School to Smith Tower would be a 17 minute trip, every 8 minutes, all day long!

OMG can't do that -- we are too poor!

OK, let's rebuild some highways for about $4 billion. We can easily afford that. Then we can have 100000 trips a day AND get all extra carbon, runoff and congestion benefits, too!

Posted by Falk N. Berry]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:17:46 -0800 The Stranger
Yeah, but as I told elenchos today, I did manage to hit pretty much every green light en route - so I think the results could easily have been reversed.

It was a worthy exercise, though, and it was a real pleasure meeting someone I spar occasionally with here on the Slog in person and getting to put a face to a name (and can I say again that the Ducati is way sweet?)

@71,

No, most of those trips don't just "disappear".




Posted by Mr. X]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:07:39 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Trevor]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:34:54 -0800 The Stranger
Defeated by 3 minutes! Now I'm going to have to try that route a few times on a weekday.
Posted by elenchos]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:25:12 -0800 The Stranger
i thought that when you tear down freeways, all those trips just ... disappear? right? people just figure out a different way of doing: combine their trips, call off that shopping excursion for a day, take a bus, ride a bike?

and the other side of that coin: when you build a freeway, it just attracts traffic. people start making MORE trips? right?

i mean, i grew up in LA and they have lots and lots and lots of freeways, going everywhere, and it's still 100% fucked. they keep building more, and by the time they finish, it's already too late. over-capacity. but i guess LA ain't seattle by a long shot.

maybe all these whiney one person per car commuters should get a fucking life and figure something else out?

too harsh?

Posted by what]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:59:38 -0800 The Stranger
Those 5-7 minutes (which is an absurdly optimistic figure, try driving through downtown on 2nd or 4th sometime at 5PM) add up to an hour a week for a typical commuter.





Posted by Mr. X]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:42:22 -0800 The Stranger
I don't live in West Seattle now, but did in the past, and I go there about 3-5 times a week.

I know all about the current "Holgate to King Street" part of the project, which is ducky if you want a northbound exit to the stadiums, and otherwise almost completely irrelevant if you're trying to deal with the seismic issues that were used to justify the gas tax increase that was supposed to fix the scary, scary AWV...

Long before the Nisqually Quake, WSDOT had decided to replace the AWV for a toll tunnel (which, fortunately, then-State Senator Mike Heavey killed in the legislature), and waterfront development and money rather than safety and efficacy has been driving this bus for a long, long time....

Do a poll or ask around, Westside, and you'll find that your view is a minority opinion among West Seattleites. As in, somewhere in the high teens/low twenties at best...




Posted by Mr. X]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:18:02 -0800 The Stranger Posted by -B-]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:06:22 -0800 The Stranger
I live in West Seattle. Do you? Based on past posts, I think not. While your concern for us westsiders is touching, you are not educated on what is happening with the West Seattle commute.

Work has already begun on two important projects. The Spokane Street Viaduct will be enlarged by a lane each direction for buses and HOV. There will be a new off ramp to northbound 4th Avenue, an underused and huge arterial into downtown.

Also, the viaduct project itself has been broken into two parts, south and central. The state has already approved and begun utility relocation on the southern section. From the WSDOT website:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct…

"Many people only think of the viaduct along the central waterfront, but the double-deck structure extends to S. Holgate Street past Safeco Field. This south end section of the viaduct accounts for about 40 percent of the entire structure.

With the S. Holgate Street to S. King Street Viaduct Replacement Project, we will:

* Replace the viaduct's south end with a new side-by-side surface roadway that connects to the existing viaduct.
* Provide new SR 99 on- and off-ramps near S. King Street, improving access to downtown.
* Create an underpass for freight coming to and from the Port of Seattle.
* Build new bicycle/pedestrian paths on the east and west sides of SR 99.

The new south end has been designed to work with whatever solution is chosen to replace the viaduct along the central waterfront."

That's right Mr. X--a big interchange for us West Seattle folk to get off into downtown!

So, what we are really talking about at the end of the day is ONE MILE. A mile at 60 mph takes a minute, a mile at 30 mph takes two minutes. Add a few lights on the waterfront and maybe you get to six minutes longer. I travel the viaduct or through SODO every day. Both routes are equally fast already.

I am willing to stretch my commute a few minutes. If people have a problem with doing that, than I might suggest they have a few other problems with their lifestyle. The fact is, we are really just talking about rush hour here. Most of the day the commute won't be affected much by any option. We are building for the next 100 years, not the last 100. We need to build more transit, not invest in a future that is wedded to the automobile. Mature cities get away from that model because there simply isn't the space for all that parking and all those freeways. Seattle is now at the point East Coast cities faced decades ago.
Posted by westside]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:58:09 -0800 The Stranger
It was a joke, albeit not one of my best. I get that you were going after a narrower point regarding the specific location of the Great Northern Tunnel and the rest of the rail lines, but my point was that you were missing the larger picture that the freight community has real problems with eliminating the AWV.

This discussion is not just the potential future of the waterfront, but also the future of a neighborhood like West Seattle that is the home to 80,000+ people, and whose entire pattern of development is substantially based on the existence of a functional SR 99.

@62,

You're on, I'll email you. Gotta say, though, that without an alternative route through downtown both of our trips are going to get a whole lot slower.



Posted by Mr. X]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:49:48 -0800 The Stranger Connecting neighborhoods to each other is another.

Damn straight, Fnarf. And screw anything that lies in that path.

It's amazing. A few Seattleites treat the viaduct like it's Eretz Israel handed down to them by God. And all for the sake of saving--what?--a goddam five or seven minutes on a drive?

The viaduct must be the fifth or sixth most-used traffic corridor in this region. Think of I-5, I-405, 520, I-90--they all get more traffic than the viaduct. Maybe even 167. And yet here are people determined to spend who knows how many dollars in excess of a billion to preserve their precious travel times. Get a little perspective people. It's not even the Holy Land, and we don't have money to burn to preserve your little mistake by the lake that nobody in their right mind would even dream of building from scratch today.
Posted by cressona]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:31:53 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Fnarf]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:02:00 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Chris]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:56:03 -0800 The Stranger
Even if patterns will change without the viaduct, it's important to address the claim that the current viaduct is useful for connecting the neighborhoods to downtown. It isn't. It's there for those who want to avoid downtown altogether, which is a different kind of issue.

The viaduct will be gone for five to eight years, plus delays, so we're going to get pretty used to not having it no matter what. Yet we also can't live without it?
Posted by elenchos]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:54:30 -0800 The Stranger
If you would have read me better, you would have seen that the "non-issue" I was referring to FNARF's concern about the end of rail service for the Port. If you want to get to it, container traffic from the Port does not go through the Central Waterfront corridor, it is generally trucked over to I-5 or I-90 and hauled outta here, or moved over to the railyards and put on a train. Of course this isn't the whole picture as there is significant local freight to be carried around, but the scenarios do address freight (and delays will occur, but I believe we're talking minutes, not hours). In short, the majority of Port activities will work, and there is a lot of mitigation being done (esp. with the S Viaduct Project, Spokane St Viaduct, and SR 519) to actually improve freight mobility so that it will actually be better than the status quo, regardless of whatever Central Viaduct solution we have.

As for the through route, times won't be as fast, but get over it. You live in a city and a pretty agreeable one at that. If the point of cities would be to get from point A to point B really, really fast, then I suggest we put freeways everywhere! Why don't we plow a 6-laner from Ballard straight through Fremont and drive it right across all those nice craftsmans in Wallingford? Why not? Because it would destroy the quality of the city. People are willing to wait a little longer to go cross town because they know Seattle is a great place to be. So why would we stand for a huge freeway in what could be one of the best places in the city? Why? Because some folks in the 1950s thought it was a great idea to build a highway to get "there" faster. In short, there are more important things in a city than to getting someplace "fast."

This conversation about the future of the Central Waterfront is largely about considering what this City's priorities are. Hopefully we can expand the metrics of project success to include not only transit time, but also affordability (cars cost a lot; so do new elevated options and tunnels), urban form, livability, low impact development (hello, saving Puget Sound), multi-modal options (bus, rail, bikes, and walking), and trips traveled (freight and people, not just vehicles). When we expand the metrics of what is important for our transport corridors, the opportunities and the solutions begin to look very different.
Posted by ABadIdea]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:43:43 -0800 The Stranger
Frank?
Posted by Grant Cogswell]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:33:42 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Fnarf]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:31:48 -0800 The Stranger
I'm at elenchos at google's email dot com. I'm free any day, so let me know when.

(It's nice to be able to take the express lanes in the morning, but not necessary. Morning or afternoon, the viaduct is no help.)
Posted by elenchos]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:50:09 -0800 The Stranger
I'm on my Ducati, right?
Posted by elenchos]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:41:22 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Mr. X]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:32:43 -0800 The Stranger

Posted by Mr. X]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:31:14 -0800 The Stranger
I challenge you to a route test during afternoon rush hour on that.

Assuming there isn't a game at one of the stadia, we can start at the same point in Ballard (I'm guessing you're trip originates north of 65th), I'll take Elliott, the AWV (or maybe Alaskan Way) and get off on 1st Ave. S. On a typical day, I'd be willing to bet I'll beat you by close to 10 minutes.

Heck, even taking 65th, you'd still make better time by jumping onto Aurora Ave than going all the way over to I-5....

Posted by Mr. X]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:30:28 -0800 The Stranger
Gee, I guess that the Port of Seattle and all of those trucking companies who share FNARF's concerns about the non-viability of the so-called "Surface/Transit" option for freight don't understand their business nearly as well as you do. They certainly don't think it's a "non issue."

Speaking of red herrings, talking around the whole problem of how to get THROUGH downtown without actually addressing it is the reddest of herrings. The "Surface/Transit" Taliban like to pretend that they can wish away the whole problem of getting from Royal Brougham to Denny, but that is the essential role that the AWV now fills, and that any replacement MUST address.

There are a couple of hundred thousand people on the west side of Seattle and its immediate neighbors to the north and south who need to get from point A to point B in a reasonably efficient manner. The grade-separated existing Viaduct does that admirably, and tearing it down without a meaningful replacement (hint - 4 lanes with lots of traffic lights ain't gonna cut it) simply will not.

I call that infrastructure, not "wasted space."





Posted by Mr. X]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:25:46 -0800 The Stranger
The second fastest way doesn't use the viaduct either. The third fastest way goes along the waterfront, but not on the viaduct.
Posted by elenchos]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:21:42 -0800 The Stranger