City council president Richard Conlin is on vacation in Greece this week. From afar, he wrote a blog post announcing that Seattle shouldn’t get bogged down discussing who will pay for cost overruns on the deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct because discussion itself could cause delays. “The primary cause of potential cost overruns is intentional delay,” he warned.
This is a direct jab at tunnel skeptics like Mayor Mike McGinn, who have been hollering about the potential that cost overruns will fall on Seattle taxpayers. “It seems to me that the argument is that there is some sort of voodoo,” McGinn says,” that cost overruns are caused by talking about cost overruns.”
Conlin, who has been on the city council since 1997, should be able to debate city policy with his eyes closed, especially because he seems to have strong convictions on this issue: “The claim that Seattle is ‘on the hook’ for… cost overruns is an exaggeration and serves solely to instill fear and doubt,” Conlin wrote on his blog. “It’s time for Seattle’s Mayor and those opposed to the regionally approved replacement alternative to face facts… Delaying the project only increases the danger of a catastrophe and hurts the economy and Seattle taxpayers.”
But Conlin has yet to publicly explain who will pay for overruns if the $4.2 billion project exceeds its budget. Roughly 90 percent of tunnel megaprojects run over budget, according to University of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg.
The day Conlin wrote his post, McGinn challenged him to a debate. Town Hall Seattle agreed to host the debate and KING 5 agreed to air it. But Conlin refused. He announced in a statement (three days after McGinn’s offer) to the press, “We do not need more debate at this stage of implementation.” In other words, he’ll debate the tunnel in a blog post, but once someone might refute his arguments on television, we don’t need a debate. They take too long. An hour-long debate is just too much to ask. Besides, it takes Conlin three days to answer a question.
So is McGinn being Chicken Little? Or is Conlin being a chicken?
“As the council president, it seems he has no reason not to debate the mayor on an issue of major importance to the city,” says Roger Valdez, a leading Seattle sustainability advocate who served on Conlin’s reelection-campaign steering committee last year. “If he is so confident that there are not going to be any overruns, then he owes it to the voters of the city to explain why this project is different from 90 percent of other capital projects like this. If he has information—if he has a guarantee that this isn’t going to have overruns—then he should share that with us.”
Locally, overruns have affected a tunnel under Beacon Hill for light rail (30 percent over budget), the Brightwater sewage tunnel in east King County (24 percent and counting), and the downtown transit tunnel (56 percent over budget). If the deep-bore tunnel were to run a realistic 30 percent over budget—the tunnel itself is $1.96 billion, other costs are for associated expenses—that could create cost overruns to the tune of $580 million. According to the city’s tentative agreement with the state, passed by the city council, Seattle agrees to a state law passed last year. It says any costs exceeding the state’s commitment “shall be borne by property owners in the Seattle area.”
It’s a confusing agreement because, as City Attorney Pete Holmes says unequivocally, the provision about cost overruns “is not enforceable.” But the state’s spending limit is. So if the project’s cost exceeds current funding—$2.8 billion from the state, $900 million from the city, the rest from the county and the Port of Seattle—the state could essentially wipe its hands of the project and walk away (among various scenarios). “The cap on the state’s contributions is essentially carved in stone,” says Holmes. As the city attorney puts it, Conlin “does not address the issue of what happens if there is a cost overrun. Saying that the city cannot be made to pay a cost overrun doesn’t address the problem.”
Where else might the money come from? The first piggy bank to be robbed would likely be the $290 million budget for rebuilding the waterfront—where the Alaskan Way Viaduct now stands. And if that happens? Instead of beaches, parks, event spaces, and a boulevard, the waterfront would be “just some pavement and sod,” says Cary Moon, director of the People’s Waterfront Coalition.
May 31 is the date the city has been aiming for to settle Seattle’s end of the deep-bore tunnel agreement. But Conlin—supposed avenger of delays, ostensible champion of expedience—is out of the office until June 1.
“Speaking as someone who supported Richard in the last election,” Conlin campaigner and environmentalist Valdez adds, “the rest of Seattle is still waiting and asking a lot of really tough questions, and I think the city council owes it to us to answer them. This is going to be Conlin’s legacy; he’s going to be the guy who forced the tunnel through. And I think he is feeling the heat. This is the chance to explain himself.”
You know what would really cause delays? Exceeding costs on this project the same way other projects like this have, getting a boring machine stuck under downtown because we’ve run out of money to pay a contractor, driving the city further into the red (where it already is) while a legislative session is months away (when we’d be able to seek more funding from the state), and sitting around like idiots hoping to suck up to the legislature (which hates our city and has vowed not to pay another cent on the tunnel) for money because Richard Conlin and our city council were too goddamn chickenshit to sort out the problem when they had the chance. Nobody wants a delay like that, Dick. 
If you’d like to make your feelings known to council president Richard Conlin, contact him at richard.conlin@seattle.gov or 684-8805.
Dominic,
Unfortunately your math is wrong…
Since the contingency set aside to cover cost overruns is unlikely to create cost overruns it should be eliminated from the cost of tunnel construction. The total cost for the tunnel related elements subject to some risk of cost overrun is reduced to $1.545B ($1.96B – $415M = $1.545B). If this amount incurred a 30% cost overrun as you hypothesized (which is approximately what the widely quoted Bent Flyvbjerg study says is typical for mega projects) then the cost overrun for the tunnel portion would be $463M which would be mostly covered by the $415M contingency with a 49M overrun (not $580M per your article).
However, what we learned during the 5.17.10 city council briefing by WSDOT / SDOT officials is that the State will contractually obligate the Design Build contractor to assume most if not all the risk for $520M of the tunnel construction with hard bid numbers. This means the Design builder has control of and some leeway over the design, and construction methods and therefore assumes risk for the elements they design and construct. If this is true, and the contractual agreements between the State and Contractor reflect this Design Build arrangement, then the portion of the project exposed to significant risk is further reduced to $1.025B ($1.545B – $520M = $1.025B). Subjected to a 30% cost overrun, the overrun would be $307.5M, handled by the contingency of $415M with $107.5M left to cover cost overruns on the remaining elements of the State’s 3.1B project which Ron Pananaan says WSDOT routinely brings in within 2% of budget (I assume he means on average).
This $107.5M will need to cover cost overruns on the remainder of the $3.1B state portion of the contract. At first glance this remaining portion is $1.14B ($3.1B – $1.96B), however it includes $345M for Moving Forward Projects / Utility relocation and prior expenditures to date which is largely money that has already been expended, and $140M for the Holgate to King Phase 2 project that came in 25% under projected bids (the savings will be rolled back into the project to protect from cost overruns, therefore has built in protection). The remaining items will cost $655M, and are largely low risk ventures (ROW acquisition, mitigation, design costs and demo and removal). With the leftover contingency we could withstand a 16% cost overrun on portions of the project the state routinely builds within 2% of the budget
Lastly, the actual tunnel bore (the riskiest part of the project) of the tunnel is $350M, which is less than the contingency of $415M. This portion isn’t even as ominous as it seems as it includes the tunnel boring machine (which is a design build contract and somewhat protected from risk), and the tunnel liner elements (which will be a massed produced Design Build element, and is also considered lower risk). Even without discounting these elements the tunnel bore could be 118% over budget without exhausting the contingency.
Dominic, you don’t seem to understand. Most citizens of Seattle have decided to ignore McGinn for the rest of his term. He is a disaster who only creates chaos and destruction. You may think that is way cool, but most of us don’t. We care about our fair city far too much.
The cost overrun issue is a ruse. The deep-bore tunnel has horrific design flaws that have NEVER been debated publicly, many never even disclosed to the public. Deep-bore tunnel supporters on the City Council, SDOT and WSDOT are guilty of deliberate or criminal dereliction of duty. The June 1st date for supposedly resolving the matter is nonsense. The shit is about to hit the fan and City Council will go down in sulfurous flames for their abject failure on this project. The only sensible tunnel option is some version of the cut/cover Tunnelite. Debate that, dumbass class.
I can’t believe we’re still arguing about how much money to spend on CAR infrastructure while the Gulf Coast is being sloshed with oil because of our “need” to drive everywhere.
How about we don’t replace the viaduct with anything. F*** the tunnel and the other options, let’s get a clue already. Stop polishing brass on the Titanic. Let’s spend the resources we have on something that won’t be worthless in 50 years.
Honestly, I’m tired of the suburbs whining about how they can’t easily drive from bummfark nowhere into our cities to work because of traffic. “Oh no, traffic!” Spoiled babies. Adapt or die.
Just build something already, Seattle. Your Mayor is a total joke and disaster. While we’ve spent the last 9-10 years debating and designing, the viaduct is still sinking and becoming more unsafe.
Debate and design time has come and gone, just finish it already.
I grew up driving into Seattle from the south end and still remember what all those unfinished freeway ramps used to look like along I-5. I sense another huge blunder for Seattle when I look at these stories, the tunnel is a bad idea. One of the things I love about driving on the Viaduct and the “collector/distributor” part of I-5 is the “Bladerunner” quality if gives commuting in Seattle. I won’t drive on the lower deck of the viaduct, and I’ll never use that tunnel. Whatever happens, there’s trouble brewing. ;0)
@5 – love your silly Army-of-One, I-am-Legend urban wasteland scenario, but I think you meant to post to the Detroit story.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the residents of Seattle disagree with you, and don’t want to be on the viaduct when it pancakes, nor do we want to play Frogger on the Alaskan way at-grade freeway proposed by other moonbats like yourself.
Civilization requires fuel, trucks and commerce, spoiled baby. That won’t be changing in the forseeable future. Get over yourself.
I lived around the block from Conlin in the mid 90’s, leading up to his election and sat with him as Secretary of the Madrona Council.
He is a good guy, but I fear he’s doing a bit of an Obama on this issue – supporting the downtown Seattle ‘business’ folks with good intent, just like Obama supported the folks who Enron’d the mortgage market with enough foresight to short their own scam.
FWIW, the public money folks HQ’d in Downtown Seattle are why Olympia hates Seattle, and rightfully so.
Great piece Dominic, and I hope Conlin is using his vacation time to realize this isn’t a situation with a completely positive outcome.
Ironic that Conlin is in Greece, the land of cost-overruns, with all of Europe on it’s knees as a result, and the message he sends home is “let’s hurry up and spend! spend!”
Unlike WaMu, Seattle has weathered a harsh recession better than most of the country. But that recession isn’t going away. Deep, deep cuts are being made in government budgets that strip away the safety net for thousands of citizens. Yet we’re already committed to a multi-billion-dollar Lake bridge. Did we learn anything from the past few years? We must not add to the potential exposure, in such harsh times, by taking on a debt of unknown proportions.
The voters have clearly rejected the viaduct. Again some in government choose to ignore the voters’ judgment. Big overruns could mire Seattle’s economy in misery for decades. Somehow the irrational exuberance of tunnel supporters – or something seamier – keeps them from seeing the darkness they’re trying to lead us into.
Seattle may face unknown economic dangers. The times point to the wisdom of a simple, efficient solution. Destroy the viaduct and replace it with a beautiful street-level solution for a small fraction of the cost.
@8 – Highway 99 is at-grade for probably 99% of it’s considerable length. Please explain why converting this short stretch of it back (Hwy 99 existed before the viaduct was built in 1953) to at-grade roadway is such a “moonbat” idea.