I'm not sure if I'm most offended that you called me "Broke down" because it's so mean, or just because is so ungrammatical.
@BerthaDeBlues

So in a city built on land-fills right smack on top of an E-W fault that is overdue for a 9+ earthquake, AND a N-S HUGE fault just off the coast where one ocean-sized tectonic plate is going under another continent-sized tectonic plate - also overdue for a 9++ earthquake that would wipe out cities all along the West coast - we are going to sink millions to build a TUNNEL that will definitely collapse in an earthquake and bury thousands of people alive?
Who's going to use this tunnel? People who can't read? Someone who has been living in the deep jungle and never saw or heard about that article about the Cascadia earthquake that everyone not in Earth Sciences have been freaking out about for the last few weeks? People who prefer to die slowly in the dark, trapped in their cars,
with no place to run to when they first feel the shaking? People who've always wanted to be buried alive in a mass grave? George RR Martin?

@2, you are mistaken. We are not spending millions on this tunnel. We're spending BILLIONS with a 'B'.

You're welcome. :-)

Tunnels are not the most dangerous place to be in an earthquake. They are generally better prepared structurally for seismic action than buildings, especially older ones.

Not that I'm a Bertha fan, but tunneling in these conditions is not some kind of insane thing to do.

Bertha is just a really ambitious project with a lot of risk, and some of that risk materialized.

Yeah, get back in that hole, you monster

I can't believe anyone approved this contract without any contingency plans for what happens if the thing gets stuck under a bunch of buildings. There's no way to do what they just did from inside the tunnel. I hope it all goes well, but counting on it going well is a horrible strategy.

I'm excited to have it start up again. It's the ultimate cliffhanger. What will happen next?

And iseult dear, it's one thing to not like the tunnel - I personally, would have just torn down the viaduct and added ferries between West Seattle and Interbay years ago and let people sort it out - but your appeal to living in fear is just silly. When your "big one" hits, everyone is going to be in trouble, not just those in the tunnel, so you might as well take the tunnel.

7,
Actually most tbms, including bertha, can be disassembled from the back to replace the bearing. It just takes a long long time.

@2: "definitely collapse in an earthquake"? do you think the engineers may have thought about that in the design process?

o ye of little faith, it's going to be too far under the city to run into more casings (which had been mapped), and methinks they've done some checking along the route in the meantime.

the tunnel will happen, later rather than sooner. obviously.

11, the BNSF tunnel already goes right under the market. The soils here are somewhat trickery than many other urban areas, but tunnels are already all over the place, and can totally be constructed here. Bertha is just a really big tbm, and is an unproven machine. The soils have not been the problem so far.

Nice to see The Stranger reporting news on this subject instead of just ranting about their opposition to it. Excited to see her started up again.

@#2 You are the drama queen of the year.