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Thursday, November 20, 2008

City Viaduct Cost Estimates Released

Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 12:55 PM

The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Group will be releasing new cost estimates and potential funding sources for the (ugh) eight remaining viaduct options this afternoon. Of interest: The most expensive of the eight options (and the one that would take the longest to build) is "Scenario F"—a four-lane deep-bore tunnel combined with a pair of north- and southbound one-way streets on the surface, near the waterfront. That scenario would cost an estimated $3.5 billion and take up to nine and a half years to build. Those numbers could put a damper on proposals to simply "bypass" the waterfront by digging a very deep tunnel under downtown Seattle—an idea long supported by Seattle City Council transportation committee chair Jan Drago.

Also of note: The cheapest and fastest options by far were the three surface options (Scenarios A, B and C), which would cost between $800 million and $900 million and take between 5 and five and a half years to build. (Note that none of these figures include non-central waterfront capital costs that would be critical to any viaduct replacement, but particularly the surface alternatives. Those are priced separately as "building blocks" in all of WSDOT's analyses. Improving city surface streets, for example, is estimated to cost between $205 million and $378 million; supplement transit service is estimated between $135 million and $476 million).

The remaining scenarios, in order of cost from low to high, are: Scenario D, which involves two side-by-side two-lane elevated viaducts, at $1.6 billion and 6 and a half years to build; Scenario H, a "lidded trench" (essentially a tunnel that isn't fully enclosed), at $1.9 billion and six years to build; Scenario E, AKA the Chopp Option, which would include an enclosed four-lane viaduct and a concrete wall on the waterfront, at $2.2 billion and seven years to build (more on that option here); and Scenario G, the familiar (and voter-rejected) cut-and-cover tunnel, at $2.7 billion and six and a half years to build.

Viaduct planners also released a list of potential funding sources for the various viaduct replacement components, including a commercial parking tax, a motor-vehicle excise tax, a tax on real-estate sales, and several types of property tax.

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Let's hope this time around we use a ranked or approval ballot, so we can actually know what voters want instead of trying to guess from uncorrelated up-or-down votes on 2 out of 3 options.

Posted by David Wright on November 20, 2008 at 1:05 PM

o ye gods of urban planning, intercede & strike down the chopp option before it can be put before the voters of this city. for verily, it is so fucking stupid that it just might win.

Posted by maxsolomon on November 20, 2008 at 1:11 PM

Option C, the couplet, with a freight-only lane and the streetcar expansion of B would be great, thanks.

Also, no voting please.

Posted by AJ on November 20, 2008 at 1:18 PM

Of note is that all 8 options increase the transit travel time from West Seattle to anywhere by as much as 80 percent over the existing transit travel time today. Consequently, all 8 options violate the "move people and goods efficiently" tenet and none of them can be considered "transit friendly" from the perspective of the 110,000 or so people who live in West Seattle, Burien, White Center, South Park et al. It's actually quite disappointing that none of these options includes true grade separated transit from either Ballard or West Seattle. An 13 minute trip by bus from Alaska Junction to downtown today will take from 20 to 25 minutes with any of these 8 options. So, a huge subset of transit riders will be taxed a minimum of 5 minutes each way for the most efficient of these new options. Not much you say - true, but everyday for the rest of time adds up to a very large time tax on a specific subset of Seattle residents. Equity? Common Sense? Encouraging transit use?

Posted by Chas Redmond on November 20, 2008 at 1:20 PM

Triple all cost estimates and double all schedules for all options. Be real.

Posted by tiktok on November 20, 2008 at 1:39 PM

Any of the tunnel options, please.

The advisory vote was worthless, because all options failed in the same way.

Posted by StC on November 20, 2008 at 1:41 PM

Are we actually going to get to vote on this? Just Seattle residents? Or statewide?

Posted by Joe on November 20, 2008 at 1:49 PM

@5 has it right. Those estimates are not even close. They are a fraction of previous estimates. Something's missing. The estimates still have value in showing the relative cost of pursuing one alternative over another, but as to the real cost of any of these alternatives... add $2B to each.

Posted by Lionel Hutz on November 20, 2008 at 1:56 PM

Do any of these scenarios do anything to build up the sea wall, which is eroding?

Posted by elswinger on November 20, 2008 at 2:12 PM

@9,

Bingo - and I bet they don't. Kind of like ordering your dinner ala carte - it looks cheap at first....

Posted by Mr. X on November 20, 2008 at 2:22 PM

David @1 for the win.

And only Seattle citizens get to vote.

The rest of you can sod off.

P.S.: We already voted against a tunnel, so get rid of that choice.

Posted by Will in Seattle on November 20, 2008 at 2:47 PM

@9: The seawall isn't just eroding, it's being eaten by gribbles.

GRIBBLES.

Posted by Greg on November 20, 2008 at 4:00 PM

Why not take the elevated option completely off the table when the partial tunnel ("lidded trench") takes the same amount of time and barely costs more?

Please no actual voting. If that happens, whatever option developers like most will win.

Posted by jrrrl on November 20, 2008 at 4:21 PM

Yes, let's replicate Boston's Big Dig tunnel system but in Seattle. Huge cost overruns, unexpected and unstoppable water leaks, falling concrete from the ceiling, gouging contractors, NIMBY neighbors, opportunistic politicians. Oh, I have a bridge somewhere I can sell you too.

Posted by Chris on November 20, 2008 at 4:33 PM

The tunnel plans all involved fixing the seawall, which was why I was for it. If we build another viaduct without shoring up the sea wall it's just another time bomb.

Posted by elswinger on November 20, 2008 at 4:37 PM

I know a lot of people like to pretend that transportation projects like this come from "separate" funding sources and thus do not compete directly with education, health care, public safety, etc., but at the end of the day, all the money comes from the same place: the taxpayers, and there is only so much of it.

Every dollar we spend on this project, is a dollar that is not available for some other public good. How many community college and university enrollment slots could we create for $2 billion? How may children, or adults could we provide health care for? How many acres of priceless wilderness could be preserved? How many acres of new parks could we build in Seattle? Even on transportation, how far would $2 billion take us in rapid transit expansion? It would probably get you at least half way to a Ballard to West Seattle subway.

All this is to say that I have a strong preference for the cheaper options, because in the end, there are a lot of other things that I'd rather spend the money on than anything having to do with this viaduct.

Posted by Tony on November 20, 2008 at 4:41 PM

@14
Yeah, the Big Dig has had its problems. But what don't you like about the fact it reduced the avg trip thru Boston from almost 20 minutes to less than 3?

http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdi…

We have to ask ourselves what the point of this project is. Is it about recovering our waterfront? Is it about getting traffic to move? If you answer "both", the tunnel options are the only options. The viaduct options may move traffic but continue to wall off the waterfront. The Chopp option is hideous! The boulevard does neither. Sure, you get rid of the wall of the viaduct. But how does a boulevard flooded with traffic recover the waterfront? And it obviously won't carry nearly the traffic the current viaduct does. You'll just be clogging I-5 even more than it is now. You'd probably even get a net increase in pollution due to those diesel trucks moving at half the speed on I-5.

With the tunnel options you can recover the waterfront and keep at least the same level of capacity (which is all I'm asking). It would even create a great platform for mass transit to travel through. For folks living on the west edge of the city like me (ie Ballard, Fremont, etc.) a boulevard option would be hell. We are completely being neglected in terms of light rail/mass transit (once the monorail went down) and now you want to take away our main N-S road? I imagine the folks that live in West Seattle, Burien, etc. feel much the same way.

Posted by NSBill on November 23, 2008 at 1:27 PM

The Boston Globe just published a report demonstrating that traffic has actually gotten worse in some areas of Boston as a direct result of the Big Dig:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/article…

Yes, commute times are shorter in the center of the city. But facilitating car traffic downtown has encouraged more people to drive, which causes back ups around the city.

Perhaps Seattle should pay attention to this example.

Posted by Rob Carlson on November 26, 2008 at 11:00 AM