The media warned us about “Carmaggedon.” The Seattle Times called it “Viadoom.” The Alaskan Way Viaduct would close for nine days while heavy machinery demolished southern portions of the double-decker freeway. And without the 58-year-old waterfront highway shuttling 110,000 vehicles a day through downtown, we were promised, Seattle’s traffic would screech to a halt.
So on Monday, October 24—the first of five weekdays that the viaduct would be out of commission—we sent three Stranger writers into the commute to see how bad it was. You know, to be part of the problem.
After all, Governor Chris Gregoire warned last year that we needed a $4.2 billion deep-bore tunnel to replace the viaduct, or we’d face a “stalled city” that “creates literally a parking lot on I-5.” The governor and several pundits have adhered to the notion—no matter how many times it has been disproved before—that commuters don’t change their patterns, take alternative routes, or switch to bicycles and transit.
Are they correct? We investigated using rigorous scientific research. That is, we drove a car, took the bus, and rode a bicycle between downtown and West Seattle to see how bad Viadoom really was.
Time it usually takes: 25 minutes
Time it took with the viaduct closed: 30 minutes
I prepared for the commute to and from West Seattle by equipping myself with all the necessities: a full tank of gas, coffee, sack lunch, toothbrush, first aid kit, Bible, and handgun.
Does eliminating those lanes on Highway 99 bring Seattle to its knees, as we’ve been told? I started my journey from downtown Seattle at 7:40 a.m. in heavy (but flowing) traffic. Thirty minutes later, after celebrating my successful commute to West Seattle by buying a coffee on California Avenue Southwest, I turned around, expecting to crawl back to Seattle with the thousands of other commuters kneecapped by the viaduct closure. But I then merged onto a deserted West Seattle Bridge headed east, driving approximately five miles per hour over the speed limit. The round trip took just over one hour (including getting lost in Sodo, the coffee break, and stop-and-go traffic on I-5). Lest you think my trip was an anomaly, the Seattle Times saw exactly the same thing. Their headline: “Commute from West Seattle: easiest of the year?”
What happened?
“Commuters are taking advantage of transit options to avoid being stuck in traffic,” says Seattle Department of Transportation spokesman Rick Sheridan, adding that travelers also opted not to take trips, rerouted trips, and left for their destinations earlier. “Travelers were getting to their destination with relatively minimal delay,” Sheridan says. But he notes, “You can’t necessarily draw long-term conclusions from short-term closures.” Indeed, a temporary viaduct closure is different from a long-haul replacement, but claims that changing traffic patterns is impossible? Well, they’re just not true. CIENNA MADRID
Time it usually takes: 27 minutes
Time it took with the viaduct closed: 37 minutes
I took the number 54 Metro bus out of downtown during the Monday evening rush hour. Normally this route travels southbound on the viaduct; instead we snaked through Pioneer Square and Sodo before taking the West Seattle Bridge. After I boarded at Third Avenue and Pine Street, the bus quickly filled to maximum capacity, and the cabin was filled with the aroma of West Seattle.
“West Seattle buses are always stinky and always crowded,” said a regular bus commuter from West Seattle named Gerry. So was this more aromatic or more crowded than usual? My fellow bus riders said they woke up anywhere from 20 minutes to a whole hour early. Another woman, Dawn, was planning on taking Wednesday through Friday off work to avoid traffic. Only one couple I spoke to didn’t usually take the bus. “Just the thought of two hours in a car compared to one hour in a bus was enough,” the man confided.
We arrived in West Seattle just before 6:00 p.m., a painful 10 minutes later than usual. PAUL HOLMES
Time it usually takes: 20 minutes
Time it took with the viaduct closed: 20 minutes
Based on the headlines, I figured I was about to enter a no-holds-barred battle for road space—just me and my creaky bike versus irate drivers, all the way from downtown to West Seattle. So I strapped two blinking lights to my frame, put on a bright yellow jacket, and tightened my helmet, and off I went.
South on 12th Avenue in the bike lane, west on Jackson into Pioneer Square, and… nothing. There was a bit of evening commute traffic, but otherwise all was normal. Onward I pedaled, under the not-yet-being-torn-down part of the viaduct, onto a smooth and brand-new bikeway through the port-freight hell that lies south of downtown, and then suddenly I was at Viadoom ground zero: Giant orange machines were jackhammering and sawing apart the big double-decker roadway.
There was a steady stream of regular bicycle commuters heading out of downtown, wearing the kind of gear that only serious, regular riders wear. If there was fury and gridlock on the roads around us, we were blissfully unaware down there on the sea-level bike path. ELI SANDERS 
1st Ave S. Northbound was a complete shitshow yesterday. I was on bike, but a co-worker said it took 45 minutes to get from Spokane st. to Royal Brougham. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
@1, Of course the folks at the Stranger will paint a rosy picture of what their 1 day commute was like without the viaduct. Their routes were cherry picked and limited to 3 people. What about the other routes, such as getting from South Park into the city. Without the South Park bridge, folks in South Park have to go on 1st. Ave., which as you pointed out, was a shitshow, or they have to go to Tukwila to get on I-5 to get into Seattle. Oh wait, the residents of South Park don’t matter to the folks at the Stranger. And as for the easy bicycle commute, the weather was nice. Let’s see what happens when the weather turns to shit.
The commute was only good for some West Seattleites. The ones that live in Highland Park, for example, had a much longer and difficult commute. And this is temporary, since a lot of employers allowed their staff to work from home after all the media hype. I am personally taking the water taxi home every night but only because there are extra sailings and the shuttle takes me where my bus usually does.
As any driver knows, day one of a major closure is not representative of anything. Your reporters need to be out there “commuting” for the duration of the closure for this article to have any meaning.
But why do that when you knew what you were going to write anyway.
Took my buddies wife an hour and a half to get from Kenmore to South Lake Union yesterday. Easily noticed more congestion, when there usually isn’t congestion yesterday (Tuesday 6:30PM) as well. Usually my route home at that time is car free. Note this was in the University District surrounding I-5 and I’d bet commute times have increased north of the canal as well. Tuesday was much different than Monday. Still not the end of the world but carmageddon attracts viewers and readers.
Tuesday was much worse. Monday commutes are always lighter. Stranger staff likely doesn’t know this living in their Hill enclave.
@2: As a year round bicycle commuter, I can tell you exactly what will happen when the weather turns to “shit.” It will take the same amount of time for the bicyclist, while all the cars and buses will be stuck in the inevitable rainy day Seattle traffic. And if said cyclist doesn’t have proper equipment (i.e. fenders, rain jacket, booties), he/she may get a little wet.
People tend to overstate the frequency, duration, and intensity of rain in Seattle. My commute is about 9 miles, and last winter I got stuck riding in actual heavy rain less than 10 times. It’s really not a big deal.
Yeah! Rrrroooarrrr rooaaaarrrrrrr rrrroooooaaaaarrrrr! Grumble grumble grumble! Failing infrastructure, Carmaggedon, Stranger’ reporters doing a statistically insignificant piece about travel times!
But let’s not discuss the larger issue, it is much more productive to grumble about the insignificant inconvenience we have to endure after 10 years of back-and-forth viaduct debates!
My 20 minute commute from Ballard to Sodo has been taking an hour. I miss the viaduct already; it ruled.
Speaking only for myself, I don’t care what the media predicted, nor do I care if they “were right”. You know what I do care about? This week long opportunity to explore transportation options, either in idea form or in reality.
Guess what? While the tunnel is being built, Seattle will again suffer from traffic congestion, street closures and/or detours as a result of construction.
You know what else? When the tunnel is built, it still won’t have downtown exits for those commuting from W. Seattle to downtown.
And finally, does the completion of the tunnel mean there will be no more congestion? No, of course not.
Let’s face it, traffic congestion is in our future unless we personally commit to reducing our single occupant commutes by making major transportation changes on a regional scale.
We could argue about whether ‘carmaggedon’ is happening (or not), but it’s a ridiculously short-sighted debate. The fact is, people will change their habits when the alternative becomes more attractive/convenient/effective to them. Quite frankly, I wish this closure were longer.
First, you went against the traffic at the tail end of morning rush hour on a Monday. BRAVE. You then turned around and went with traffic… post-rush hour.
Second, the 54 picks up at 3rd and Pike. It’s a busy route so it being busy is not a shock. Also, it’s ususally running behind, as all buses are, during evening rush hour. You were luck to not have left around 5, when the buses were stuck behind trains.
Third, you should have done this on more days covering more routes and times. Tuesday SUUUUUCKED bad. Wednesday isn’t looking rosier. Everyone is watching the news, hearing that it’s ‘not that bad’ and returning to driving. There were plenty of cars driving on the shoulder and cutting off buses Tuesday night.
Monday morning coming in from West Seattle at 9:00 after performing my school morning carpool duties: WS Bridge is clear, 4th Avenue is moving so-so, not too much hassle, 20 minutes to my office downtown.
Wednesday morning, same time, but with a relatively minor accident on I-5 backing traffic up on Spokane Street viaduct and onto the West Seattle Bridge, traffic at a standstill on 4th Ave from people fleeing I-5 and trying to make their way through downtown, a slow moving train keeping anyone from jumping over to 1st Ave: complete clusterfuck, one hour and 15 minutes to get to my office.
What you clowns at the Stranger have consistently failed to grasp is that it is not the downtown throughput that is the issue – it does and always will operate at capacity; it’s what happens when things are not operating at optimum conditions (optimum being no accidents, no events, no bad weather). Our transportation system is perpetually on the brink of complete breakdown – tipping it that way is very easy to do. Continuing to beat the drum that we don’t need to replace the Viaduct with a tunnel or anything else (which is what this snarky crap implies) is just asinine.
Second that #13. 4th Ave was an interminable crawl Wednesday morning. It would have been quicker to park near the SODO link station and ride the train in.
hahahah fuck you west seattle.
Holy shit, Batman! This Viadoom situation sounds like a commuter’s nightmare!
@2: I agree: feedback is okay, but you can’t really base a traffic impact study accurately with the testimony of just three people, and only in sunny weather when visibility is good.
Is there any problem-free train access to SoDo and downtown from West Seattle? I’m up north and a lot of people commute downtown via Amtrak / Sounder. Big bonus: Amtrak’s diner may be expensive, but it’s got a bar!
@2 I ride year round, rain or shine, fyi. I wouldnt assume everyone out there is a fair weather commuter. As 7 said, get a jacket and some fenders, it really isnt that big of a deal.
I work in SODO, come in on I-5…extra 5 mins in the am. I still take the viaduct north at 5, it is heaven…the other day I was one of 4 cars I could see. The only other time I didn’t see cars coming from the south was on the day of the big freeze and that was so weird. I was one of the last cars to get onto and successfully get off of the viaduct that day.
You need a broader sample. Took me 70 goddamned minutes to get from Edmonds to the 520 exit on Tuesday around 3pm. 3pm!
My park & ride lot has started filling up, due to all the new bus riders…I fear this may force me to go back to driving to work, due simply to no place to park at the bus stop.
Hey Three Stooges of Denisty! As usual, your ejaculation was both smug and premature:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo…
Viadoom traffic finally living up to the hype
The much-feared Viadoom congestion finally arrived in full force Thursday, causing slowdowns as far off as Bothell.
Traffic entering Seattle on I-5 has been stop-and-go from Shoreline to downtown, starting as early as 3 p.m. and continuing past 5 p.m. A seven-mile trip from Northgate to the convention center took 40 minutes, according to the INRIX traffic-data firm.
Cienna Madrid for Bad Science of the year award! Clearly she has never spent any serious time in West Seattle. Her scientific method:
–Commute to West Seattle when traffic is moving in the other direction at 7:40 AM. Note: People who actually live in West Seattle and need to get over that bridge are on Admiral by 6:20 AM. Each additional minute costs proportional time tenfold, without the viaduct closure.
–Madrid’s actual “commute” begins after the majority of West Seattleites have to be at work, 8 AM; thus she chose to commute when anyone still on the bridge would have been about an hour late. She chose the very time when no one would be on the bridge, not commuters and certainly not anyone else who could travel off-peak. Very very bad science.
Very typical of The Stranger.
I suggest that Ms. Madrid wake herself up at 5 AM and attempt the bridge at 8 before writing such vapid palaver. or, at least try an off-peak time that is not cherry picked to represent the time that no one would indeed be on the bridge; it took me 1 hour 20 minutes to go from Alki to Banya 5 in Eastlake at 3 PM. The usual time? 15 minutes.
I’ve read Ms. Madrid’s anti-car articles over the past two years. They show a shocking ignorance for what anyone who does not live in Capitol Hill faces. And, I write this as a very very pro-bike person.
Ditto for those who exclaimed WTF at Ms. Madrid’s idea of “rush hour.” I live less than a mile from the bridge. To get my son to Queen Anne and myself to work in Capitol Hill at 6:15 AM and the reverse commute at 4:00 pm took me 3 hours. Three hours. Using the HOV lanes. And that included one instance of being the shitty person who races past the long line of people waiting and cuts in front of the slower-accelerating truck (I’m pregnant and was about to vomit, sorry fellow West Seattleites.). Keep in mind that many people I know took this as a stay cation week just to avoid this craziness. this shut down was handled badly. The lack of real planning for a long term solution is a tragic mistake.
Well, we could have waited until the collapsed during rush hour squashing a lot of drivers and kill a bunch more … California ring any bells?
Seattle is NOT the city I once knew…sigh.
I can’t believe the deep bore tunnel, that was repeatedly and rightfully shot down at the polls by the voters, is going in, thanks to City Council, property of the super-rich!
I haven’t been to Seattle in the last month. Does this mean that because the Alaskan Way Viaduct no longer exists, that West Seattle is cut off from a smooth-running commuter route, and is now reduced to the same shameful status as the Mercer Mess?
If only voters hadn’t said no to federal funding back in 1962 during the World’s Fair. We might actually have had efficiently running public transit well in place by now.
Any rush hour(s) commute by bus or car that involves entering downtown at Denny, from Aurora/99, has taken twice as long as usual. Even though Aurora itself has been emptier than usual (thanks to those who took the week off), there’s been total gridlock from Prospect to Denny. Because it now takes 15 minutes to crawl the 5 blocks from Prospect to Mercer/Broad, I’ve been bailing from the bus there, and walking the rest of the way (much faster). Meanwhile, downtown has been completely stopped on the avenues.
This is a pretty good preview of what we would have had with the surface streets option, as well as what we can look forward to, when we have a tunnel with no downtown exits. Too bad we were derailed from options like a skytrain/monorail or subway, like the ones in other large cities, as well as from a viaduct replacement with downtown exits.
@27 & @28: Good LORD, I feel sorry for all of you stuck commuting in all that mess!
The City Council is definitely on crack.
Why are you people still reading this crap for news? It stopped being real several years back when the new “hey I think I’ll be a journalist this year” crowd of dumb-fuck babies infiltrated. Wankers.
@30 So why are YOU reading The Stranger, then?