I haven’t written much recently about one of my pet obsessions, Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct—perhaps because there hasn’t really been much to mention. Now there is.
From what I hear, the Seattle city council is considering putting an advisory vote on the Viaduct on this November’s ballot. Voters would only get to choose one of two options: rebuilding the highway along Seattle’s waterfront pretty much as it is now, or rebuilding the highway and sinking a portion of it underground.
Why a vote? And why just those two options?
Basically, the city and state have reached a stalemate over the tunnel vs. the aerial. Most (though not all) city officials prefer a tunnel. Understandably so: nobody wants their legacy to be a noisy concrete blight smack in the center of some of the city’s most valuable real estate.
But the extra billion or so for a tunnel just isn’t there yet. Transportation planners keep trying to pare the tunnel’s cost by shortening the segment that’s actually underground; but that just makes the project less attractive. Plus, cost overruns and water-leakage headaches associated with Boston’s Big Dig have soured some folks on the prospects of a waterfront tunnel.
So, in essence, the city councilors want to punt the issue back to voters.
In one way of looking at things, this makes sense. If Seattle residents are going to have to live with (and pay for) the thing, they should have a chance to vote on it.
But in another way of looking at things, the vote is rigged: there are only 2 options on the ballot.
Not only are those options poorly defined (most voters won’t know that a rebuilt aerial would be even more imposing than the existing one, or that the underground section of the tunnel would be so short), it seems to me that an either-or vote stacks the deck, by excluding all rival ideas other than the “official” options.
To me, that seems like excluding minor, third-party candidates from an election: it narrows the debate, rather than broadening it; and inhibits democratic choice rather than fostering it. Yeah, minor parties sometimes act like spoilers, a problem that a smarter voting system could help solve. Still, excluding minor parties from a ballot seems inimical to open and democratic governance. Just so with policy options—restricting the debate to two choices simply narrows our minds.
And there are at least 2 other major options out there that voters could consider: shoring up the existing structure, rather than replacing it; and using a combination of street and transit improvements to replace the viaduct’s capacity, without rebuilding a highway.
I don’t think much of the former option—as I understand it, most seismic engineers who’ve looked at it have said that the whole structure is seismically vulnerable. Perhaps voters would be willing to forego safety concerns to save a billion or so; but it’s not something I’m too comfortable with. (See the comment thread here for more.)
But the second option seems very much alive in my mind. Especially because of this (pdf link): the state’s plan to “Keep People and Freight Moving During Construction.” Basically, the viaduct will be closed for anywhere from 18 months to 4 years during construction. And the state has laid out a series of steps to deal with traffic during the interim, including:
- improving transit access, and expand water taxi service, from West Seattle to downtown
- boosting transit by adding more bus routes, bus stops, and bus priority streets
- shift event times at the stadiums and Seattle Center to avoid clogging traffic
- improve traffic throughput north of downtown, especially at Mercer and Denny
- boost park and rides north of downtown, to reduce car travel into the center of the city
So if that sort of thing—improving streets and transit—will keep us moving for up to 4 years, couldn’t it last for longer? Seems to me that switching some money from the viaduct reconstruction budget to an even more robust streets and transit plan could do even more to maintain mobility—but still save a billion or more, compared with even the lowest-cost of the highway options.
Two final thoughts:
First, from a climate perspective, vehicle travel is Seattle’s #1 contribution to climate change. The most important thing we can do in Seattle to pare back our emissions is to shorten car trips, and shift some of them to more fuel-efficient modes—which is going to take shifts in land use and investments in other kinds of transportation besides cars. And that’s very hard to accomplish if we’re spending most of our spare transportation budget on highways.
And second, putting a tunnel-vs.-aerial vote before the electorate will do exactly one thing: help improve the prospects for the aerial. The tunnel will have to score a really solid win for it to keep in contention—and just whisper “Big Dig” and wavering voters will swing away from the tunnel. Even if the tunnel scores a narrow win, it can still be killed by the high cost: voters may want it, but not want to pay for it. If cost remains an issue then the aerial goes from being an “also ran” to the next-best option.
So if you support any option other than the aerial rebuild, it seems like a narrow, either-or vote on the tunnel vs. the aerial is against your interests.
Frank
“So if you support any option other than the aerial rebuild, it seems like a narrow, either-or vote on the tunnel vs. the aerial is against your interests.”That’s a great point, Clark. In addition, I would say that voting in general on these things is a pandora’s box that should be avoided, lest we set the precedent of voting again every time the project changes (see: Monorail).You also write, “So if that sort of thing—improving streets and transit—will keep us moving for up to 4 years, couldn’t it last for longer?”While it’s clear that the WSDOT plan could mitigate traffic in the 4-10 years that the new road will be under construction, it’s not (yet) clear to me that the transit improvements they/you suggest will still be sufficient come 2030 or 2050, when the city is much larger and more congested.So how do we show that the surface/transit option can satisfy our needs not just in 2010, but in 2030, 2040, etc.?Unfortunately, I suspect that the answer involves a holistic transit plan where we take that extra $1B and invest it in high-capacity transit—say, a Monorail!—that would connect the west side of the city and reduce the need for a viaduct. But that would require an astounding level of cooperation and coordination among voters, legislators, and transit agencies that I just don’t see happening.To bring it back around to my original point, putting the decision to the voters makes this even harder because it doesn’t present a complete picture, further balkanizing the constitutent groups involved.
David Sucher
I can’t understand why we keep proceeding under the fantasy that the Mayor and Council have much to do with the decision. Unless they ask the voters to authorize the additional financing needed for the Tunnel, they have no skin in the game. And of course we all know that they dare not ask the voters for the money because they would lose.The Rebuid is of course the worst and stupidest of all the options and is a non-starter for a host of reasons, the primary one being that once you tear down the Viaduct you cannot replace it with another one because of politics—what I call the “Westlake Mall phenomenon.”So the only realistic option remaining is the Retrofit. That’s where we’ll end up after all this sturm und drang.What puzzles me, Clark, is why surface option proponents such as you and Cary Moon are so quick to jump into bed with the Mayor (who is also not an engineer so far as I remember) to claim that the Viaduct cannot be repaired. Do you think that Vic Gray and Nwil Twelker are cranks? They are very very experienced engineers and their claim has long been that a repair is quite realistic.So my question is not to whether or not a Retrofit is realistic but why so many folks are so willing to be skeptical of some facts—the cost & value of the Tunnel—but so willing to believe other facts—that the Viaduct cannot be Retrofitted when both sets of facts are from the same sources?
Fine tooth comb
I am not sure I agree with your political logic that more choices on a ballot would make an rebuild less likely. I think it would fracture any message from a political vote and make it useless.Two notes however:Clark—you bring up climate change and emissions as if they were relevant to this debate. And they would be if viaduct money were to go into transit if we don’t build. But the political reality in this region is that that viaduct funding would simply go to more sprawl-inducing, carbon-burning projects like 405, 167, or others.David—Even if a retrofit is possible, at the end of the day it is a poor choice. After spending a billion or so you still end up with a crumbling, unsafe road with narrow, substandard lanes and no shoulders. Every time there is a small accident, there is gridlock. If you owned a older house with little charm, lousy design, and a poor foundation on a great lot—would you remodel it or tear it down and start over?
Clark Williams-Derry
Frank -Great points. Frankly, I’m not sure that the streets + transit option *would* work over the long term. (Though it probably depends on what one means by “work”. I mean, we could do what Vancouver BC has done so far, and just live with limited road capacity downtown and some pretty bad congestion. That hasn’t “worked” from a traffic throughput perspective, but VAncouver is still ranked as one of the world’s most livable cities, and its GHG emissions are way below ours.)Heck, I don’t even know if transit+streets would work in the short term. But far as I can tell, the main intermediate-term obstacle to a streets+transit option is afternoon rush hour—when there’s very little spare capacity on surface streets & I-5 to begin with. As far as I can tell, we’re talking about handling the demand for 6-7K car trips in the afternoon peak. Mind you, that’s *a lot* of trips. But between 3rd, Alaskan Way, the tunnel, and a few non-conventional options, I think it’s probably doable. That said, I try to be open-minded. If somebody did a legit, activity based transportation model that included generous but realistic estimates for transit, land use changes, and changing patterns of travel—one where I really felt they were being fair & realistic—and still found that businesses &/or residents would flee downtown because of an unmanageable rush hour, then I’d probably be much more skeptical about the transit + streets plan. But at the same time, that would mean that both rebuild options would be a mess, too. Maybe I’d be converted to David’s point of view.David -We’ve been through this before, <a href='http://cascadiascorecard.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/rush_hour_by_th.html#comments. ‘>here.I think we simply disagree about whether the judgment about the retrofit really comes from the same source as the judgment about streets + transit. As I understand, the consensus view of prominent academic seismic engineers at UW, peer reviewed by colleagues in CA, was that you can’t just retrofit one section & still meet code. You have to stabilize both structure & soil along the length of the viaduct—thus the high cost. Their language was pretty unequivocal. And again, as far as I understand, that conforms with the judgment of most experts who’ve looked at the issues. Twelker & Gray disagree, obviously. But it’s hard to see how, exactly, one could even adjudicate that dispute and remain reasonably objective. Regionally, the big guys in the field—the ones who would ordinarily be called in to judge these sorts of matters—have already looked at the issue and rendered their opion. So you’d have to convince them that they’re wrong and/or bring in other big-name seismological engineers (maybe Japanese?) to study the issue.Given the cost of the rebuild options, of course, that might be worth doing. Or it might be worth it to do a retrofit on one section, and just say “We all know this doesn’t meet code and is probably unsafe, but so what.” Heck, the “cheapest” option is probably to let the thing stand up for another couple of decades, and hope for the best.But basically, just because the opinion comes from the state, doesn’t mean that I think it’s bad. In my mind, it depends on how the estimate was done.For the same reason, I’m not as concerned about cost overruns for the tunnel & rebuild options as others seem to be. As far as I can tell, the cost estimates are done really well, with just about the best possible methodology for estimating cost overruns & the uncertainties inherent in megaprojects. They could still be wrong, but I don’t have any way of judging that. So yeah, the cost estimates come from the state, the same people who say that transit+streets won’t work; but it’s done with a methodology that basically seems reasonable & credible, which I don’t think is true of the transit & streets option. Obviously, others can disagree with that. But in the absense of a reason to disagree, other than skepticism for skepticism’s sake, I don’t have much to say about the state’s cost estimates.
Clark Williams-Derry
Finetoothcomb -On the vote, I think you’re basically right. Having just 2 options narrows the debate; having more could muddy the waters further. Plus, it’s just an advisory vote with no money attached. When you add money, the votes will probably change some. All in all, a poll probably makes more sense than a vote at this point—you could probably get more information from a poll than from a non-binding vote with just 2 options.On the $ issue—perhaps you understand the political dynamics better than I do. But I’m not sure that it’s a given that all the money will be spent anyway. I know that’s how Transportation Choices Coalition sees things, and perhaps they’re right. Still, it seems to me that the lack of a Viaduct in the RTID package could have some unpredictable effectson funding overall—e.g., people in Seattle feel like they’re getting nothing from the vote, making passage more difficult. I’m no good at reading the political tea-leaves, though.
David Sucher
“Engineering feasibility” is not an independent variable but a function of necessity. Anyone who says that the Viaduct can’t be repaired (and well) simply wants to reach that conclusion. Take one of Fine Tooth’s criticisms: too narrow lane width. My response is to slow down the speed. So what if you can’t go 60 mph?We have a looming stalemate. 1. No money for the Tunnel.2. The Rebuild would face sit-down strikes etc due to the Westlake Mall phenomenon i.e. once you tear down the Viaduct you CANNOT rebuild it.3. The surface option not persuasive to a regional audience.The only politically-viable solution, after all the sturm und drang, is piecemeal repair. Every other option is blocked. You heard it here first.
scotth
Let’s also remember that the money that has already been approved for the viaduct project cannot simply be switched to fund some sort of transit option to complement a surface street. The state constitution bars gas tax money from funding anything but roads and car ferries.