When I think about those average citizens, I imagine them looking at the near-14-year history of this project and wondering, “How did we arrived at this point?”

Probably because we underfunded education for an entire generation.

Thanks Thom - we definitely appreciate hearing this from someone in the know. It's easy to be pessimistic about this project, but this is more about being realistic.

@1 that's your takeaway from this article - a spelling error? Fuck off, dude.

It was always obvious the bid price made no sense - tunnels cost 3-10 times what surface highways cost, and elevated costs 2-3 times what surface highways cost.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy says when you spent 10-20% what the tunnel will eventually cost, you keep building.

No, you switch to a workable plan. Cheaper, faster, able not to kill 80,000 people when a 7.0 to 9.0 quake traps them underground while power to pumps & fans is shut off for weeks. Weeks. Not hours.

@2 I didn't realize I was supposed to write up a full report on a paid hack's non-proofread CYA notice. There is nothing new here, but it never hurts to remind people of the money being wasted on this project that should have been used to follow the state constitution (funding education).
This project has never been realistic from the start, fuckface, and no amount of circle-jerking will make it realistic.

?Who is Thom Neff, PhD? Hmmmm. Well, OK, then. Seems I've heard of Parsons Brinckerhoff before… Oh yeah, that "Fathom IT fellow.

@4 It isn't a CYA. He isn't responsible for the project and was brought in to comment on risk before the project started. He wasn't optimistic then either.

@4 - Whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of a deep-bore tunnel, saying that "the money being wasted on this project that should have been used to follow the state constitution (funding education)" is a non-starter.

In WA State, the Legislature has completely separate revenue streams and budgets for "transportation" and "everything else."

They could have used "the money being wasted on this project" on another transportation project, but not on education (or any other social service program).

@4

I like your spirit Sir Vic, very much in line with the whiny criticisms from The Stranger.

Why do we think Thom Neff is credible? This doesn't read like an engineering report; it reads like MBA consultant-speak. Game theory, ooh, that always sounds impressive.

I think "they eyes of the world" are indeed on Seattle, and they're wondering why we don't hire somebody who knows how to dig large-diameter holes to dig our large-diameter hole. People love to talk about how this is "the biggest tunnel ever", but it's only the biggest by an inch or two, and it's also one of the shortest.

There are a hundred of these tunnels being dug around the world without problems, some of them right here in Seattle. This report doesn't address why that is. I'll bet Neff picked up a nice fee for it, though.

We are in a situation where, because all the local politicians went 'all-in' on this thing with zero contingency plans, they must continue with 'all-in' to save face even though the risk of sticking it out is much greater than that of re-assessing the project. Not a one wants to stare at the shaking finger of 'I told you so' while still in office. They'd rather defer and sink the whole ship from a 'safe' political distance. This thing is fucked from a thousand different angles.

The Stranger is posting weekly (or more) negative reporting. Factual news is spun wildly, and in the lack of news it's an editorial from a detractor. It's a great time to be banging that gong, because there can't be any forward progress until it's fixed. What a great way to create a pent up reserve of negative public opinion, kicking a project while it's down.

But what will they say if it works? It gets repaired, it starts boring again, and finishes in a timely manner?

@12 - So we should engage in quiet, wishful thinking until we know for absolute certain that this mess can or cannot succeed - at some unknown date down the road? Or to translate: "bury heads in sand"?

If the tunnel boring machine were stuck under prime downtown real estate, instead of under a conveniently empty part of the waterfront, there would be a plan B. Maybe plans C, D and E, too.

My understanding of the tunnel project (based on a few press reports) is that this is a 'turn key' project. WSDOT contracted with STP to deliver a tunnel. And they are on the hook to do so. They picked a bad drill bit out of the tool box and broke it off in the work.

A 'Plan B' would be a renegotiation of the project. A change order, using the terminology of the contracting trades. And this is where many contractors recover costs that they did not foresee. So be very careful with talk of new plans. If the contractor has to go down to the tool store for a new bit, that's on him

@12 They will say, "Wow, that was even more improbable than the Seahawks-Packers game"

@12

What they'll say is that they don't want Seattle taxpayers to finance for the cost overruns. They'll also say it didn't finish in a "timely manner," and they'll be right about that, despite your apparent belief that the thing is still going to finish on schedule in September of 2014.

The "plan B" people should be arguing about is the one that tells us who is going to pay for the repairs, and how, if that "who" turns out to be a local government with a tight budget.

@9 Who do you propose we hire, and how do we do that when we are already under contract? Of the four teams that bid on the project, two dropped out because it was too risky and one turned out to be the guys who fucked it up. Maybe just put an ad on Craigslist?

@15 That's actually not on anyone until a judge says it is. And the contractors have a long history of getting judges to agree with them. Current repair work has been funded from WSDOT's project budget.

@18

And how would anyone get Bertha out of the hole safely, and install an alternate tunneling firm's machine in her place?

The large-TBM inexperience and related technical failures here are Hitachi Zosen's, not Tutor Perini's.

@9 This is an editorial. The linked report contains more detail about specific risks, which differ from the successful tunnel projects you mention.

Why do we think he's credible? Why do we think anyone is credible? For one, he has a PhD in Geotechnical and Civil Engineering, which sounds relevant to the question at hand, and which is more qualification than almost everyone else who's been speaking publicly on this project. Two, he was a Vice President at Parsons Brinckerhoff for 16 years during which time he was "Geotechnical Division Head" on the Big Dig.

FNARF is correct.
The solution is simple: "Just build it!"

Don't worry about cost. Don't worry about who pays. Don't worry about technical problems. Just smile. Be happy. :)

@11 is correct.

Keep ignoring reality, but you better stop driving if you do that.

The last paragraph was a wonderfully done and richly deserved shiv into the gut of Ed "I can't afford to understand the concept of sunk costs' Murray.

I keep remembering a comment made to me personally by a senior SDOT engineer assigned to this project, back before any earth had been turned. She told me "…the risks on this project are Just So Enormous." With strong emphasis on the last three words.

I doubted her at the time, but history is proving her prescience.

@18, I dunno, I'm not an engineer. But that's what we did when Brightwater was stuck: Dow Constantine hired a new firm, who were able to get it unstuck.

If Hitachi Zosen is to blame, then they should be taking the heat.

Yes, WSDOT hired STP to deliver a tunnel. However, the moment they can no longer turn a profit on what is left, what is to stop them from declaring bankruptcy and walking away? The more the overruns build, the smaller that contingency bond looks.

@26
You are not an engineer but your comment was an ad hominem credibility of someone who is an engineer. Turns out that he is a "civil engineer with a doctorate in geotechnics."
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/transport…

Considering that the real FNARF is one of the smartest people on Slog, I assume that someone @9 and @26 has hijacked the real FNARF's account.

@27 And there would still be the problem of finding money for what would be an entirely new tunnel project and the negotiation of what would be an even worse or more expensive contract than the first one.

@25 is also correct

Fnarf...I've generally liked you contributions on issues, but you're whiffing on this one, and have been for years.

Neff has the chops. It seems you simply don't want to acknowledge that.

And your assertion that this tunnel is no big deal, that the size of the machine doesn't matter, and that the soil conditions are no big deal are simply belied by this one glaring fact:

Bertha failed. For reasons that include the unprecedented nature of the machine (size) and the nature and conditions of the soil.

But hey! Let's just go forward as though nothing has been learned, and ignore any potential lessons that are glaringly obvious thus far.

"The rescue operation itself is a significant construction project, and was not part of the original SR-99 project design. Some have suggested that this requires a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, but this issue was initially rejected."

Initially rejected, but how about now? As a resident 2 blocks away and an engineer I would like to know whether I should expect my building to settle and crack, potentially injuring me and my neighbors. It's common sense to evaluate any potential environmental impact of an operation that large. Who is going to be held accountable if Pioneer Square sustains damage from this?

@15 - TP will never finish the tunnel. The state removed the one real protection we had - a completion bond - in order to obtain a fictitious lower price. When TP walks from the project after they determine they have milked the project for as much money as they can, they are not on the hook for completion.

Funny that people think that once Bertha is finally repaired, it will move seamlessly through the other 88% of the dig. Remember how a metal pipe fucked the cutting head to the point of repair? From THIS POST a year ago:

And that pipe may be only the beginning: Crews have since sampled the soil ahead of the stalled machine and discovered more likely metal obstructions in tunnel digger's path, which all must be somehow removed before Betha can move again.

"We have probed 12 holes and encountered other obstructions in six of those holes," said Chris Dixon, the program manager for Seattle Tunneling Partners, which has a billion-dollar contract with the state to dig the tunnel (his company is not the same contractor the state worked with in 2002 that installed the pipe). Those obstructions are not believed to be boulders or timber, he said, leading him to believe they are "metal objects." (WSDOT's website claims that out of 17 soil samples, officials found four obstructions.) The tunneling machine, which is designed to churn though soils and break boulders, cannot chew through metal.

Yeah... there isn't a snowballs chance in hell this thing is ever getting finished in a timely manner or with acceptable cost overruns. It will most likely break down under a historical building, and that will be the end of this whole sad affair.

@34

Leave it to Fnarf and Friends such as Tom Rasmussen and there will never be "the end of this whole sad affair." People who have staked their political career on The Tunnel -- including our Mayor -- will never give in. They do not have strong-enough egos to admit that they screwed up. We the citizens and taxpayers will pay to the last bit of politician's egos.

The Tunnel was a bad idea (though reasonable people might disagree) but what is criminal is that they spurned McGinn's attempts to at least insulate the City from cost overruns.

@36, have you lived here long? Any project, including unscheduled changes in the middle, have to go through design, analysis, review, and then discussion by people who aren't involved except their political or appointed positions put them there. Then everyone has to agree, or else start over. Just be glad they didn't ask for a public advisory vote.

@37 None of what you describe is actually involved in the TBM repair. STP is a black box and WSDOT can't direct its work without opening up a contract interference claim.

@34...if you read between the lines at WSDOT, they've been backing off of the pipe as cause of troubles position for a long time. I don't think they believe it was the pipe.

@39 I can't imagine why the WSDOT would try to avoid blaming the pipe... except for the glaring fact that they're responsible for placing the pipe there in the first place.

It's time for the cops to arrest Bertha for blocking traffic. Problem solved!!

All right, now I'm a pugilist that everyone's watching. But I HAVEN'T failed. I just have an incomplete. That's all. I just need some extra time to finish the project.

@BerthaDeBlues

The idea that Bertha will be repaired by spring of this year can only be the result of smoking beaucoup amounts of opium in one of the (rumored) dens buried in underground Seattle. We're in the third week in January and they haven't even completed the extraction pit.

This project has turned into an engineering/build disaster of future textbook proportions.

I especially love Neff's comment: "The worst outcome would be two completed tunnel portals, with the ancillary approach systems in place, and no tunnel."

We got rid of the ramps only to build the tunneless portals.

Neff never predicted that what would go wrong was the machine itself. He predicted many disasters, but none of the disasters he predicted have materialized. If your mom tells you not to go on a long road trip because you might have a wreck, run out of money or get lost, and instead you get appendicitis, should she get all smug and say "I told you so!"

As Vick Gray and I had vigorously presented years ago , before the Tunnel was approved, the first thing that the state should have done was to retrofit the Viaduct to guarantee that it would be safe for as long as the Tunnel project took to be useful. That way, if construction problems occurred or earthquakes, Seattle would be able to avoid any traffic complications while other solutions could be found. Our estimates ranged from about $500 million to $1 billion for the retrofit. Not much by today's standards.

If the State was managing the Tunnel project responsibly, it would stop all contractor spending on other than the repair of Bertha, so that unspent funds could be used for a Plan B solution in the event Bertha is defunct.

Without retrofitting the Viaduct (even with new settling from Bertha's attempted fix) we can get decades of use out of her and keep the 110,000 vehicle trips per day flowing through the city and off city streets. Without stopping the spending on other non- Bertha expenses, their will be NO funds available for a Plan B, which will mean the tax payers will be on the hook for another large budget transportation solution.

To date, the project management of the Tunnel Project has been criminally irresponsible and ethically deplorable. And we are not finished yet.

Arthur M. Skolnik FAIA

@44 That simply is not true. Neff highlighted the problem of the precedent setting largest diameter TBM many times in his initial report, and in fact, one of his conclusions was "An attempt should be made to involve the selected TBM manufacturer in the Risk Sharing scheme in a meaningful way" specifically because there was so much risk involved here.

Additionally, he predicted the complexity of the soils and specifically the problem of ground water pressures on the machine itself.

You simply seemed to have imagined your entire point.

The portals to nowhere.
Sunk cost fallacy. (something sunk)
Move it, milk it, or bury it. (it doesn't move, it's been milked, time for burial)

Tear down the viaduct and the portals. Build a new cut and cover, to a viaduct at the North end, and a new battery st tunnel.

The only good thing about this is that it will probably cost tunnel-supporter Murray his re-election and prevent tunnel-supporter Burgess from either being re-elected or becoming mayor. That might be worth it.

State taxpayers should pay STP 20 million for groundwater problems for their broken machine?

WHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I thought WSDOT assured us we bought a fixed price product.

1-22-15, the tunnel is officially dead.