The Washington State Department of Transportation has posted a draft of its environmental impact statement on the proposed deep-bore tunnel. It covers tons of stuff—traffic volumes, commute times, greenhouse gas emissions, electricity use, wildlife, hazardous materials, and more. But as I’ve reported before, the state doesn’t apply the impact of tolling when measuring all those factors. Tolling the tunnel, a necessary step for the state to pay for the project, would divert more than half of the existing traffic that currently uses the Alaskan Way Viaduct onto city streets and I-5, thereby skewing impacts in ways that aren’t measured.
One chapter that does acknowledge tolling says, “the Bored Tunnel Alternative does not include tolls.” Even without them, the state expects 22,000 vehicles to switch to city streets; under the tolled version, another “40,000 to 45,000 trips would shift to I-5 and city streets.” In other words, of the 110,000 trips a day that currently use the viaduct, about 65,000—or 60 percent—would switch to other roads.
That will have significant impacts on traffic volumes at other parts of the city. Here’s a table taken from the tolling section that shows the traffic changes downtown—comparing the existing viaduct to an untolled tunnel and then, more realistically, a tolled tunnel (scenarios A and C are most viable to pay for the tunnel)—at certain latitudes downtown:
- WSDOT
Traffic passing certain so-called screens would increase by nearly 40,000 vehicle trips per day on city streets in some certain areas, with the greatest impact near the tunnel’s north and south portals, when comparing the existing viaduct to a tolled tunnel.
The study is now open for public comment and there will be several public hearings.
I have no problem with tolls, just as long as they have a sunset clause. 520 Bridge was originally paid with tolls, once paid off, the toll booths were removed.
Conlin’s little house of cards is falling apart.
If we’re going to have bad traffic anyway, let’s not waste the money. Tear down the Viaduct and don’t build a replacement.
This is perfect! Build the god damn thing already! Enough!
If traffic moves into the city that is perfectly acceptable. Downtowns are notorious for being clogged cesspools anyways. Keep my highways traffic free of city traffic! That will keep those who commute thru with a manageable experience!
For those of us who commute thru, this is DREAM SCENARIO to have half the normal traffic! SWEEEEEEET
If you dont re-build the viaduct, it simply offloads all that traffic onto I-5 or downtown streets.
If you just re-build the viaduct, albeit street level, then all the parking under the viaduct is gone and the city loses money because they were depending on fleecing car owners to patch a hole in the budget with higher parking rates. Its also a sure bet the state would withdrawl the money they gave us to build the tunnel and declassify I-99 as just a normal local road and the city **MIGHT** have to pay for the costs of tearing it down and re-building a steet level road.
#1: NO sunset clause please. The toll revenue should go back into the city once the tunnel is paid off, since we are paying over $900 million for this tunnel with no city benefit.
Read Chapter 9, they make it very clear that the state has the final say on implementing a toll, which is required to pay $400 million plus of obligations.
Here’s the rub, though: tolling is a hard sell, and of those that have previously approved tolling, we’re losing quite a few to this election.
What would happen in that case? The state can’t raise taxes for revenue, but the Council graciously provided for two options very recently:
1) Citywide tolling district
2) Citywide taxing district
You’d be a fool to assume they won’t dip into either of those. They’ve also cautiously blocked any attempts at raising parking rates and taxes for this very reason.
All we do in Seattle is for the cause of the tunnel. The tunnel rules us all.
Actually, initial estimates were in the 50,000 a day range – BEFORE toll avoidance.
Think nightmare.
Day in.
Day out.
Kill this Tunnel, Governor!
Chapter 9 also tells us another reason why transit was cut by the state: cost of the project as a whole. They spend a bit of breath explaining that “hey, transit is too expensive”:
Their environmental study shows that they know emissions will increase dramatically but they point out that, regionally, we’d be fine, since emissions are taken as a sum of a regional level. So in regional assessments, all options for tolling would increase emissions to a negligible level.
But! If you live in Seattle near the project area:
To which they add, acknowledging their increased scope of the project:
And now you know why the project area went from just downtown and effected neighborhoods to a four-county “regional”. Even though their regional studies show little to no impact on circulation (Exhibits 9-3, 9-4, 9-5). It’s easier to take a huge jump in emissions in the ID or Lower Queen Anne if you average it out across thousands of square miles.
Kinison @1: I have no problem with tolls, just as long as they have a sunset clause.
I myself have no problem with tolls, just as long as they do not have a sunset clause.
One of the many critical transportation mistakes we have made in most of this country has been to miss the opportunity to put a price on the use of our urban highways. You wind up with a tragedy of the commons phenomenon where none of us individually have an incentive to do what would benefit all of us collectively. The result: traffic jams. In this whole parking debate, the book “The High Cost of Free Parking” has come up. Well, you could just as well have a book “The High Cost of Freeways,” emphasis on free.
Signed,
Someone who does not hate cars
Straying away from tolling further, here’s the proposed benefits to other transportation modes:
Hazardous freight would be moved onto the waterfront:
Their attention to transit is unmitigated bullshit:
In fact, their transit projections assume that in 15 years there will be on increase in transit usage in the project area:
In 15 years, transit mode share has increased far more than 1%.
On pedestrian and bikes, they demur and punt to already established mitigation efforts.
So, if there are tolls, no one will ride in it, and if there are no tolls, we can’t afford it. I think the discussion is already over.
In actual practice, the Billionaire’s Tunnel can’t allocate space for transit, since it’s just not big enough.
And it doesn’t go where people want to go.
@10 still an EPA violation under two different measures.
Wonder how much this will cost when we discover shell middens from the original inhabitants of the area? Or historical artifacts from The Seattle Fire?
I smell lawsuits. Lots of lawsuits.
@13: All that copying and pasting boiled down to brass tacks.
I don’t care, I like copying and pasting anyway.
Imposing anything other than a nominal toll (say 50 cents) for a road that can be easily bypassed is beyond stupid.
Goodbye, tunnel, we hardly knew ye.
Hello, new viaduct.
@17 is correct. Although I’d say a $2 peak toll might work if it was tightly bound to rush hour.
@17: I give your “new viaduct” about 3 months into the teardown of the old until it goes out with a whimper.
Then maybe my street here on First Hill can get a sidewalk.
@19,
Enjoying fantasyland?
Good.