People who think it would be cheaper, of even feasible, to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a surface/transit option are dreaming, says Seattle City Council member Nick Licata in his weekly edition of Urban Politics. “We could end up with an even greater financial hit to Seattle property owners than possible cost overruns on the deep bore tunnel,” he says. It’s long, but a good read:
VISITING THE STATE LEGISLATURE
This past Monday I, along with Councilmembers Bagshaw, Clark, Burgess and Godden, met with over twenty State Legislators to express Seattle’s needs in this session, in light of the immense budget cuts that the state is facing. The legislators’ message was the same: capital budgets are being drained dry to meet school and human service needs. This could have a major impact on funds for Seattle’s AWV project.
The entire thing continues after the jump.
The last time Seattle voters turned down the elevated and cut and cover tunnel options in 2007, the state legislature took $400 million from the Viaduct project and moved it to the 520 project. That resulted in a new proposal for a toll to fill the $400 million gap. While the debate will rage on about whether the state will pay for any cost overruns on the deep bore tunnel, the flip side of the issue is whether Seattle would keep the money already allocated to this project for a surface road alternative, as the Mayor prefers.
This is where the state legislators come in. None that we talked to indicated a willingness to transfer that money to a surface road project which would run through downtown and be augmented by expanding I-5 and adding more bus service. As recently as last month, in a December 2010 forum, State Senator Ed Murray, the sponsor of the bored tunnel legislation, spoke strongly against expanding I-5-a key element of a surface option.
Further, in a February 2007 Seattle Times article, State Senator Haugen, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, was quoted as saying the state might contribute only $1 billion for a surface replacement, and that the money left over from what was allocated for an AWV replacement could be used for 520 or other unfunded projects across the state. State House Transportation Committee Chair Judy Clibborn was quoted expressing similar sentiments.
If the tunnel project were to not move forward, it’s doubtful that the state legislature would quickly support a surface option and shift the needed $2 billion or so to fund it.
SURFACE OPTION
An unspoken assumption is that if the tunnel is stopped, we’ll get a surface option instead. UP #303 described the history of efforts to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. This edition of UP will focus on the surface option, which hasn’t received as much attention over the years as other options. First a little history, then I’ll follow up with some thoughts on the funding options.
HISTORY OF SURFACE OPTIONS
The 2004 Draft EIS reviewed five options, including a 6-lane surface option that combined SR 99 with Alaskan Way. This surface option included 12 stoplights, with a short viaduct connecting the road to the Battery Street Tunnel, and a speed limit of 30 miles per hour for the entire surface option, as opposed to the posted speed now of 50 miles per hour.
The DEIS projected 74,000 car trips along the waterfront, resulting in nine hours of congestion per day, and average speeds of around 12 miles per hour. It projected significantly higher travel times for through trips (e.g. from the Aurora Bridge to Spokane Street). Travel times increased only slightly for trips from originating elsewhere and ending in Downtown. Downtown traffic was projected to increase by 16%.
The 2005 Alaskan Way Viaduct No Replacement Concept Report focused on a four-lane roadway to replace the Viaduct. It projected 35,000-56,000 vehicles per day, and made a number of assumptions: increased bus service, which would necessitate increased revenue to Metro on a sustained basis; significantly higher transit ridership, assuming that transit would be an attractive alternative and not stuck in the congestion; the monorail, which is not being built; and light rail to Northgate, which will not be reached until long after the current deep bore tunnel is scheduled to be completed. This Four-Lane Option was included as the “No Replacement” alternative in the 2006 Supplemental Draft EIS.
Two options moved forward for the 2006 EIS: a cut and cover tunnel and an aerial.
In 2006, as then Council President, I commissioned a study of a 6-lane surface option, to further analyze it, as Councilmembers wanted additional information. The study indicated it would result in more pollution, greater congestion, and showed how streets with too much vehicle traffic quickly become pedestrian unfriendly.
The study also noted “If Viaduct capacity were reduced, or trips diverted downtown, future decision-makers would have little flexibility for the surface street system to accommodate transit needs in the future, because the Downtown grid can accommodate about 20-30% of Alaskan Way Viaduct traffic during peak periods; once you get to 40-50%, you start breaching the capacities of the streets.”
The 6-lane surface option wasn’t exactly what some supporters of a surface option wanted, such as the People’s Waterfront Coalition and the Sierra Club, who have advocated for a reduced-capacity road with significantly increased transit, more properly called a surface/transit option.
In 2007 Seattle voters voted against an elevated replacement and a surface/tunnel hybrid (in fairness, the inclusion of “surface” in this option was more marketing than anything else). Subsequently, I co-sponsored Council legislation to create an urban mobility plan. It mentioned considering a phased approach to removal of the Viaduct, construction of a new surface street, and new transit options. This was in line with 2006 legislation that declared a tunnel the Council’s preferred alternative, which recommended development of a transit and surface street option if a tunnel didn’t prove feasible. The Urban Mobility legislation directed SDOT to work with WSDOT and King County.
The Stakeholder Advisory Committee was created by the Governor, Mayor and County Executive soon thereafter, and worked during 2008, studying eight options, including three surface options. Two surface options included a 4-lane boulevard on Alaskan Way to replace SR 99, and a third converted Alaskan Way and Western into one-way three lane streets to replace the Viaduct. The cost estimates were $800-$900 million for each of the three options, but included only the SR 99 road work.
A separate menu of additional work for these three options had cost estimates for work on I-5 ($195-$498 million), city surface streets ($205-$378 million), and transit ($135-$476 million capital costs/$9-$60 million annual operations). This work was considered necessary to some degree for all eight options, because every option assumed diminished capacity on SR 99.
WSDOT then created two options from the eight proposals, one of which was called the I-5/Surface/Transit Hybrid. It converted Alaskan Way and Western into 3-lane one-way streets, with 28 stoplights in a new SR99 corridor on the waterfront. The option included a budget of $929 million for a SR 99 surface street, $553 million to add a lane to I-5, $216 million for city streets, and $476 million for transit. The total cost estimate was $2.2 billion, not including $1.1 billion in work farther south on SR 99 (which has proven less expensive, see UP 303). The intent was that all the elements would be needed to provide a solution.
So a complete surface option is not cheap, as some might believe from the public debate. It has a major capital construction budget.
FUNDING/FINANCING
Perhaps the most compelling element of a surface proposal is financing, because costs can be more easily arranged into a pay-as-you go manner. The cost of the key capital project—$550 million in work on I-5-is less than an elevated, and much cheaper than a tunnel. This does give it a certain appeal, because if some elements cost more than expected, and the budget is running out, most of the work would likely get done, and theoretically at least, cost overruns could be avoided.
However, financing is also the biggest weakness of the surface option, because the state legislature has never made any commitment to funding it, and funding is a decision made only by the state legislature. Unless the state legislature was to sign off on a surface option, the City would be responsible for the costs, which could climb to a billion dollars if a true transit component were included.
When asked about his support for the surface option, and whether it’s realistic, the Mayor has answered-correctly-that elected officials quickly changed their minds and lined up behind a bored tunnel that a month before didn’t even appear to be an option. So why couldn’t the same thing happen again?
It’s a compelling argument. The weakness, however, lies in the unspoken assumption that the state legislature would shift over $2 billion or so to fund a surface replacement. Furthermore, the elected officials who quickly came together were the Governor, most of the City Council, and the former Mayor and King County Executive. The state legislature eventually came on board, but only with a notable lack of enthusiasm, demonstrated in the ambiguous language about cost overruns being covered by Seattle area property owners who benefit from replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel, and a requirement that $400 million be paid for in tolls. This response came even after Seattle agreed to take on several hundred million in tunnel-related costs such as the seawall and utilities.
The funding needs for a surface solution bring us back to the State Legislature. Given their need to vacuum up every available cent from capital projects, the probability of the State taking away a good portion of the current allocated $2 billion for a deep bore tunnel is fairly certain if the City opts for a street surface replacement for the AWV. We could end up with an even greater financial hit to Seattle property owners than possible cost overruns on the deep bore tunnel.
Note the key word there:
PROPERTY OWNERS.
In other words, your lord and masters, cause you may think Citizens run the City, but you’re just Serfs of the Developers and their Billionaire Overlords, who let Red China steal copywritten software (90 percent of the Chinese Microsoft software, according to today’s news) so that they have an unfair competitive advantage against American citizens.
How do you like the race to the bottom and the Gold Plated Vanity Tunnel now? Cause you’re paying for it – not the rich people – you.
Pleasantly surprised you posted this.
I agree with Licata that the state funding would be in danger were the city to decide to switch to a surface/transit option. This is an ugly catch 22 which points to an ugly systemic reality in which Olympia seems to be holding a knife to Seattle’s back. How on earth is it just that Seattle be cowed into accepting a boondoggle project because Olympia refuses to fund anything else? It’s OUR fucking waterfront.
Our waterfront, their highway, and State trumps City, legally, so that’s what matters.
This is precisely why my “pants pop for the tunnel”. The option that looked like it was going to happen before the DBT was picked was what is referred to as the Chopp-A-Duct – a larger structure, with similar to increased capacity.
The DBT is reduced capacity, and has a transit element ($15 million per year in increased transit from Metro).
So, when the option is same or more capacity and no transit element, or decreased capacity with a transit element, I can understand why the people who support the tunnel do.
And as Licata points out – even if we could do the surface option, the money just isn’t there.
@1 source – who pays for the tunnel, renters
Time to kill the Billionaires Tunnel.
I can also give links from GE and Eurostar about engine and ventilation motor burnouts but that takes me quite a while, so do it yourself.
Any system with that many fail points is a disaster waiting for massive change orders.
Time for a fresh look at an elevated structure. Yep.
@5, what the fuck does Steve Ballmer have to do with the tunnel? @6, your engineering nous is zero. You don’t know ANYTHING about “ventilation motor burnouts”, which are not an issue — there are thousands of tunnels around the world, some of which have been there for eighty years, with a goddamn ventilation motor burnout. For Christ’s fucking sake.
SHUT UP, Will, you’re damaging whatever position you think you’re helping.
What Licata doesn’t seem to grasp is that all of his calculations about traffic and pollution don’t matter if nobody uses the tunnel. And, as currently stated in the plan, this tunnel will not get used. Almost all of those cars are going onto the surface anyways. The difference is, as it stands there’s no plan for what to do with them.
fukkkkkk teh tunnellllllllllllll
I don’t see why it’s a problem that they would only pay a billion dollars for a surface option.I don’t really think any replacement is necessary really. Why not just make up the difference by selling off the land under the viaduct? If a billion doesn’t cover the replacement road the replacement road was probably too expensive.
As a taxpayer in a state with mega-regressive tax structure, it sounds like this plan saves me a clean billion dollars.
Licata vs. McGinn is a debate worthy of a healthy civic environment, ignore the remainder.
FWIW, I still think that an elevated ‘Choppaduct’ ONLY AROUND THE MARKET/STEINBRUECK PARK is worth a further look.
Over the last couple years Nick’s been one of the best about being glad to remind anybody who asks about this stuff. I guess the Stranger has decided now’s as good a time as any to finally take notice, since he put it on the handy internet in an especially easy to digest format and all. As a council member he sees the state ready to sign the negotiated agreements committing to state funding and planning help to mitigate and minimize traffic spillover onto Seattle streets as design comes together.
For the jillionth time: the people the McGinn/O’Brien/Stranger base-building team so loves to call ‘rabid pro-tunnel’ are no more than a collection of diverse people who’ve realized that in the final analysis, every other option sucks even worse. A replacement elevated is ugly and does nothing to reduce vehicle trips as the tunnel would. Surface/transit accomplishes vehicle trip reductions but has no funding ideas, no strategy for its I-5 widening component, and a high probability of dumping way more cars than the tunnel onto city streets.
While the bandwagon to stop the tunnel has a lot of great people on it, it’s being led by a very few who are all too happy to avoid acknowledging the stratospheric Seattle costs and political impossibilities of their own ideas.
Yes, the tunnel carries masses of risks and problems, all of which are more manageable and fixable than the risks and problems any of the others would bring. So from here on, yes, moving forward will definitely be headache after another. One unavoidable, but passing, headache after another. We should learn to resist the Chicken Little impulse every time.
P.S. After this, the council’s latest visit to Oly to learn stuff on the ground, Publicola asked Aaron Pickus if the mayor had gone yet. Aaron said no and that though he has no plans to, he hasn’t ruled out the possibility. Mm hmm.
@4: Perhaps State trumps City legally, but that is precisely the problem. Anti-city, anti-urban systemic biases are built-in to transportation policy and financing. This tunnel is a perfect dramatization of why cities need to re-claim the power they have too-easily relinquished to other scales of political organization. The city is the future:
http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2740
@13, retrofit can be accomplished safely for a fraction of the tunnel cost.
The state is wealthy enough to afford $2 billion in transit improvements in Seattle. And spending that much would be entirely just and beneficial to the people of Washington. The real hitch is that Olympia politics currently prevent tapping the state’s wealth in a fair way (progressive income tax), and Olympia politics prevent a just allocation of that money to Seattle.
But instead of fixing the real problem, it’s easier to take the state’s money and see how far we get on this tunnel project until the tunnel finance house of cards collapses. Then what? Start over? What a waste of time.
Better to give up on this tunnel and fight for what’s right now instead of later.
So what you’re saying is that despite that Hopey-Changey thing, because of an immovable decision at a higher level than what the local people desire, an outcome that is detrimental to all is suddenly made the best choice…
Every time the state cries poor mouth I think of this boondoggle and I want to tear my hair out.
@15, that’s just not true. $2.2 billion to add between one and 20 years of useful life? I’ve just found WSDOT keeps a page linking to every study they’ve done on retrofitting since 1995. The summary from which I got that takeaway is the last doc on the list, the Stakeholder Advisory Committee Retrofit Presentation pdf of July 2008. Have at it yourself if you like:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct…
@18 for the insightful win.
Not that any of us win with this White Elephant.
@21, I don’t see a study reporting that anywhere, but post up a link – I’d like to see it. It sounds as though the timing is the tricky part for justifying the expense.
Say your plan is approved and expenditure of X amount is made and five years from today it’s retrofitted to that standard.
Five years and one day from today, the 500-year earthquake hits. The viaduct doesn’t fall down, no, but all 110,000 cars used to driving on it divert to city streets and I-5 for as many years as it then takes to tear down the viaduct shell, and try to figure out all over again whether to replace it, and if so with what.
And your lower-to-some-degree expenditure is down the drain.
It’s a plan, but it has its soft spots, you’ll admit. Please do post up that link to the study you’re talking from, though.
Seattle voters would never support a transit ballot measure to shore up funding for a Surface/Transit option. Ever. We hate transit here.
Fuck off, transit!
Thanks, @24 – I did see the Lin report on Gray’s limited retrofit suggestion, and its followup, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ review of Lin’s report, ultimately dismissing Gray’s idea as not worth investigation beyond the two studies done of it. I can see why you’d think there could still be some hope for Gray’s notion, but after reading Lin’s list of its missing elements I don’t share your optimism about overcoming its apparent reputation as penny-wise but particularly pound-foolish.
I also noted the ASCE followup seemed to disagree pretty strongly with your suggestion that after an earthquake, nobody would need to travel on that highway anyway. Apparently that’s not universally agreed to be a good motto for regional transportation planning in a seismic zone.
If you do find a link to something describing what you remember your friend said about some 100-year standard he learned of before quitting some kind of review board back in the 90s, I’d be interested to see it. Thanks for giving me such lovely breaks from work to read all this stuff tonight.
And I forgot to add, @24, that though I do share your optimism that if there were an earthquake FEMA would help pay to clear away the rubble, I’m not as hopeful the feds would step in to pay for replacing it with something too. If the federal stimulus had been carried out with the gusto it required, we might have some funds at hand to help take over state responsibilities for a replacement, but that window slammed shut a while ago.
So for planning purposes, it might be best to proceed as if the state will remain responsible, but then while that goes on you’re still free to keep hoping for a quake that’s no more than the exact severity you need to get FEMA in here.
The state does not appear to be switching options. Hmmm, that is interesting. I wonder what McGinn thinks about this political reality.
Nick Licata rightly points out that every option requires mass transit. The governor mentioned on the Seattle Channel on 12/17/2011 that she will be working with King County Executive Dow Constantine to get legislation passed this session. The city has also made transit a legislative priority.
Hopefully all parties that are interested in Seattle and King County securing mechanisms needed to have sustainable transit funding all support that effort.
Licata: We might as well use the funds because otherwise, the money will be used for something else that we need.
Great leadership.
Oh yes, and the fear of 12 mph average auto speed? That’s called a pedestrian paradise. Bad traffic is just a sign of a humming economy and a place where people want to be.
When the borer gets stuck underneath the Federal building and becomes a permanent fixture on the expanded Seattle Underground Tour, can we finally talk transit improvements?
I might be misreading this, but…
Tunnel: $4.3 billion, $2 billion in state funds
Licata notes “State Senator Haugen, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, was quoted as saying the state might contribute only $1 billion for a surface replacement”
The surface option, detailed above, with all bells and whistles: $2.2 billion, $1 billion in state funds
So…how does losing that billion hurt when the price tag drops by two? Wouldn’t everyone win here?
5- Glad to hear renters think that renters are paying for the tunnel. Want to stick around Seattle for a few decades and have a voice that makes a difference? Want to actively participate in those projects that you think will make a difference? Then buy property.
Otherwise, you are a temporary resident. Feel free to exercise that option that you so covet — get fucking pissed off and leave. Go to that utopia of Happy Renter Land that I’m sure exists elsewhere.
Oh, and Dig The Mother Fucker Already.
@29, I think someone may be feeding you funny numbers. The current total viaduct replacement plan cost estimate isn’t $4.3 billion, it’s $3.1 billion, all of which the state’s getting paid mostly through gas tax, plus federal and Port help it got commitments for and some tolling it hopes to do.
Under the state’s plan the City’s only projected cost is $50 million in reimbursement, to be paid after the state finishes all the city-utility relocation work.
All that’s on the lower part of the page at http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/Viaduct…
Haugen’s suggestion is that under surface/transit the City of Seattle would need to line up at least $1.1 billion before work could even start.
Sure, the most powerful surface/transit proponent, the mayor, hasn’t visited Oly even once since he’s been in office… but it’s possible surface/transit proponents can start working to swing the legislature around, if they really want to.
Until then, though, the financial picture seems to be:
Tunnel: City reimburses $50 million after work is done.
Surface/transit: City finds $1.1 billion or the work doesn’t happen.
Gloomy gus @32, my understanding is the city has a billion-dollar commitment to the tunnel project: utilities, seawall, waterfront. This may be where we get towards Cow’s $4 billion figure. Duly noted that all those current city cost commitments would still apply to a surface/transit plan as well, although perhaps the utilities would not be as expensive.
Also, I want to star your fine post @13. I’m pro-tunnel myself, but only insofar as it’s the least evil option out there. And no, as much as I like surface/transit, I don’t consider it a viable alternative. The only surface/transit option today is keeping the viaduct standing indefinitely in the name of surface/transit. Maybe it should be called the surface/transit meta-alternative.
It’s puzzling to me why the mayor apparently is not reaching out to the state legislature about the one issue he feels most strongly about. I’m not privy to the day-to-day workings of city and state government, but I shouldn’t have to be an insider to know that the mayor is doing his due diligence with the legislature.
Cressona, fair point on the added Seattle costs of our City-managed seawall and waterfront projects, and that utility relocation costs would have been lower without a tunnel. Though the City has yet to do enough cost estimating to firm up its projections, the range I’ve read is $250M to $700M, still not enough to account for the $1.2 billion discrepancy in the number Mr. X mentioned.
In any case, thanks for the star for the effort on that earlier post. In looking back at it I’d change it to acknowledge that of course the peanut gallery on the pro-tunnel side does have its share of nutters, charlatans, and outrage junkies too (see @30 for a nice example).
* The economy is bad and not getting better, and the feds are mortgaging the future of the young. The lack of money in the City and State make it obvious that a $5B downpayment is far, far too much.
* Peak oil and climate change have made it clear that we have overspent on cars and highways and will need to adjust our realities accordingly.
The prices quoted for a surface option are absurdly inflated. $500M for -a- lane to I-5? Is that gold-plated?
Knock the viaduct down, clean up the mess and pave a street: where are the bids from 3 contractors asked to do that on an affordable basis – without all the bells and whistles?
Get that done now for under $1B, wait for better times and there’ll be plenty of real-world evidence about what needs to be added. If better times don’t come, there’ll be no albatross killing our citizens.
When you start taking money away from schools, sick kids and people in wheelchairs to fund a toll tunnel, it’s time for a breeze to clear away the nasty stink. Park your cars at home, and prepare to pony up for the real cost of your privileges.