The Sightline Institute, a local nonprofit researcher, has issued a report that finds digging a deep-bore tunnel under downtown would likely run far over budget, costing the average Seattle family of four $700 or more. The group examines other tunnels as indicators: the Mt Baker I-90 expansion tunnel, the downtown Seattle bus tunnel, Sound Transit’s Beacon Hill tunnel, and the Brightwater sewage tunnels.
Writes Eric de Place:
It goes without saying that no two tunnels are alike. The deep-bore tunnel will be unlike any other tunnel that has been constructed locally. Nonetheless, we can learn something by examining recent local projects, each of which grappled with specific geographic and historical issues. It is only reasonable to believe that the deep-bore tunnel will face its own unique problems. But, speaking personally, the fact that the deep-bore tunnel is something new and different makes me more pessimistic than optimistic.
The state legislature required city taxpayers to pick up the tab for any overruns; and the city council is expected to vote on Monday to declare the tunnel Seattle’s preferred replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Put it up for a public vote if it’s our City’s choice.
Cause it’s not.
Popular or our choice.
The tunnel will go overbudget? Really?
Next you’ll tell me that the sky is blue.
By Sightline’s logic, we should never lay another mile of light rail.
I doubt that is Sightline’s logic. The point with cost overruns on the tunnel is that the legislature and supporters have been saying…”of course there won’t be cost overruns!” while simultaneously making sure that they weren’t stuck with those potential cost overruns.
Seattle should just be very aware of the risk we are being asked to shoulder for a State project.
@2 – actually it’s kind of gray right now.
sounds like they’re saying cost overruns are the reason not to build. that is a very dangerous argument for Sightline to make. taxpayers *somewhere* always have to pay cost overruns, whether in the city or the state. opponents of lightrail can use this post against them in the future.
Note only will the tunnel cost more than expected, it will completly sink the political aspirations of Mikes McGinn and O’Neil.
@7 – I think you mean Joe Mallahan.
Have construction labor rate not come down in the last 2 years since the estimate was done?
I just wanted to clear something up: In no sense am I suggesting that we scrap plans for sewage, rail, roads, whatever. All I’m doing is pointing out that local tunneling projects have often exceeding their initial cost estimates. I think that’s valuable information for the public — and it was something I was unaware of before I began this research project.
In light of local experience and international research on megaprojects, I think it’s pretty clear that we should take a a more skeptical view of cost projections, particularly when a small slice of the population (Seattle property owners, in this case) is on the hook for overruns that could potentially be onerous. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would rush to firm up funding agreements when the available cost estimates are based on 1% design — that’s far, far sketchier than the engineering information we’ll need to put the projects out to bid.
— Eric de Place, Sightline
$700 bucks to get rid of that awful viaduct and push the traffic mess underground? boo fuckin hoo. suck it up. that is nothing.
@6: Except we voted for Light Rail with the knowledge of prior overruns.
When did we vote for the Deep Bore Tunnel?
Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?
@12 – well, I know I sure as heck didn’t vote for it.
I think I would have noticed a multi-trillion dollar vote …. unless I was “too busy” like Joe M.
Is anybody still looking at whether Chopp’s tunnel-overrun amendment is going to be enforceable at all? I know Clibborn and Ceis said it wouldn’t be – that, plus a belief the legislature had sufficiently padded the budget against overruns, is how they justified letting it go, so Chopp would free the legislature to vote. The City’s most recent council briefing indicated enforceability was uncertain.
McGinn’s been clear he doesn’t think a mayor should push back on enforceability down the road.
Anybody know if there’s been some independent analysis on it? Sightline’s report looks pretty sound, so it’d awfully nice to know how much it could matter.
Don’t you remember? We didn’t understand what kind of tunnel we voted for. Oh wait, a tunnel is a tunnel. I know what I voted AGAINST. A tunnel.
The other issue in why this will be difficult is the seawall. You aren’t just boring into the earth; you have to completely shore up one side from that big blue thing next to it.
There more than one variable here (not to mention earthquakes).
it’d *be* nice. Fuckin’ chai jitters.
So glad I’m not in Seattle! Too bad they can’t enact a way to get anyone with a Seattle address to be on the hook for overruns…
We wouldn’t want any of you hipsters to be excluded from the responsibility of participating in living in your Urban Nirvana!
🙂
Interesting to note that the biggest tunnel project on the chart, and the only one executed by the State DOT, was also the best tunnel project. More than 50% under budget. I guess we know which agency to trust, budget-wise.
Also, the question mark on Brightwater is SO dumb. Give us the current cost overruns or nothing at all.
Would be more useful with some more information; the length and width of the tunnels, perhaps. Or their total budgets. This chart really tells nothing, as 3 out of the 4 projects are very small diameter compared to a highway tunnel. We need to dig further into the past here, how much did the Great Northern freight train tunnel under 2nd ave cost, adjusted for inflation? That’s a pretty big tunnel.
A deep bore tunnel is preferable to a rebuild of the elevated freeway, which are the only two options the state will consider – contrary to what McGinn thinks.
@14: Well, let’s look at the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which they frequently cite as proof that this can be done on-time and under-budget:
Abstract from the report here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/…
Moreover, Ceis and Clibborn are major tunnel supporters, why would they endanger this by saying this amendment inserted into legislation would harm the city?
#18 – I encourage you to read the report I wrote. Not all of that information would fit into a blog post, but almost all of it is contained in the report.
W/r/t the Mt Baker tunnel, there are a couple of interesting factors to consider. For one, there was already an adjacent large tunnel dug through the ridge (for the original I-90), so the geology was extremely well understood. Also, the bored portion of the Mt Baker tunnel is about 1/6 the length of the planned deep-bore tunnel downtown.
As for Brightwater, estimating the cost overruns is actually pretty complex. You’ll find a detailed discussion of the various ways of accounting for the costs in the report. Most importantly, the Brightwater tunnels are not finished yet — so, in principle, it is impossible to know what the final number will be.
–Eric de Place, Sightline
Eric de Place @10:
And next Eric de Place is going to claim with a straight face that he was unaware Santa Claus did not exist until he conducted some research.
Eric, please do not insult our intelligence. There are a lot of us who are transit supporters who–even though we believe that this particular tunnel is a poor use of resources–take offense when we see lazy, broad-brush arguments like “tunnels go over budget” and “we’ve never done this before–who knows how much it will cost?” There are good megaprojects and bad megaprojects, and I’d rather see arguments that distinguish the bad from the good than arguments that can be used against all megaprojects.
Cressona–
Believe what you will, but I had honestly had no idea what the research would turn up. I’d heard tunnel supporters cite the Mt Baker tunnel repeatedly, so I thought I’d do some digging (har, har) to see if other large-scale tunnels in the region had gone the same way. Turns out Mt Baker is really more of an exception to the rule.
Also, I should make clear that the “lazy broad-brush” arguments you cite are not actually my arguments. To the contrary, my research actually does precisely what you claim to wish for: it evaluates specific projects and presents specific facts about them.
— Eric de Place, Sightline
@8
No, McGinn is going to lose because he bet his campaign on the tunnel without doing the voter math. Here, I’ll do it for you:
– About 50% of Seattle doesn’t want to build the tunnel, the other 50% is ready to move ahead with it.
– Of those 50% against, roughly half are anti-car progressives, and half are anti-tax conservatives/populists.
– Of the conservative/populist crowd, roughly 0% are going to vote for a bearded hippy from the Sierra Club who makes a show of riding his bike everwhere.
So, at best the tunnel issue gets McGinn a 25% slice of the vote. Of course, that slice would have been his anyway.
Granted, not everyone will base their vote solely on the tunnel, but the issue will tip the balance enough to lose McGinn the election.
Baconcat, I think we agree the Sightline report helps show overruns are reasonably likely, and agree that the views on enforceability Clibborn and Ceis gave are by no means independent or expert enough to give any comfort.
That’s why I wonder if anybody independent has done serious analysis on the enforceability. McGinn’s recommended we assume it’s enforceable out of respect for the legislature, which is sweet. Still, I’d like to know if there’s an in-depth view around from somebody with no dog in this fight.
Because if it’s unenforceable, maybe we could take “fighting Seattle having to pay overruns” off the list of things that whichever doofus wins can screw up.
All those graphs really tell us is that the inital budgeting effort, and subsequent cost estimating, was flawed. Tunnels tend to cost what they’re gonna cost. If we want tunnels, we have to acknowledge what the REALLY cost. There are costs, and there are benefits. Are we willing to pay, as a socieity, for the end benefits?
@14, you are correct. Only a stupid fucking credulous hack (see Holden, Dominic) would continue to claim that the city is absolutely on the hook for cost overruns. I’m not sure whether Mike McGinn is misinformed or is consciously lying when he touts it as fact on his website. Everyone connected to the tunnel project has said outright that the clause was either “symbolic” or just illegal and unenforceable… including everyone’s favorite deputy mayor, Tim Ceis. The state is fixing a highway, and just as with any large project in any other municipality, will cover the cost overruns.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/po…
People might be against the project due to overall cost. State costs will affect future state budgets, and that’s something which affects everyone. Lying about the situation only makes the opposition seem questionable, though.
Eric de Place @ 21:
Read your report. So the mount baker tunnel was finished so far under budget because of previous experience from building the 1940 tunnels in the area.
So is there any chance that the experience gained building the Transit Tunnel and the Great Northern Tunnel under downtown will help us bring the SR99 tunnel in under budget? I don’t know how well the railroad engineers kept records back in 1905, but it was a major project in it’s day (highest and widest in existence at the time), so you’d think they would have kept good records.
It’s past time for people to realize that there are no good options for replacing the Viaduct, just bad ones and REALLY bad ones. The deep-bore tunnel falls in the latter category.