The TBM is stuck "indefinitely" in the same way that you can't tie your shoe while there's a not in your laces. There's an obvious solution, you implement it, you move on.

You guys are going to have a lot more stuff to kvetch about later on in the project. Much like singing the Star Spangled Banner, start in a low register to leave yourself room at the top near the end when it counts. With this as the opening salvo, you'll be frothing and ranting before mid-year.

The State needs to pay for their error in leaving the pipes in place!

They need to backtrack and find out which contractor did the work and who was the inspector assigned to the job and then decide who's to blame. The state may have decided to leave the pipe in place for future inspections of water levels. Sheesh! Blame Blame Blame! Just get the job back on track.

#5: "fantastic project?" How much hash oil did you have for breakfast.

This is a tunnel that carries only two lanes each way and no shoulders: so you think traffic jams are "fantastic" since currently Hwy 99 jams daily at the very spot that's just like the tunnel, the Bell St. section.

The tunnel offers no on/off ramps to downtown, massively undermining its utility.

The tunnel is so expensive (and costs are climbing every day that nothing is being done), that tolls to the tune of $9 both ways are being discussed. for a stretch less than 2 miles. So where do you think the toll-avoiding public will spill onto: downtown, or I-5, or both?

There is also the unpublicized necessary cost of the seawall fix, $400 million, that former mayor McGinn tried to tell the public but was shushed by the tunnel-loving City Council before the tunnel vote, but once the tunnel was voted through the City Council was first on the horn about "WE NEED TO FIX THE SEAWALL!!!!!!" Effing jerks.

Fantastic?! What fantasy are you living in?!

And more, #5 "jeffy:"

"easily removed?" One month later, the easily removed pipe has not yet been removed. How many months per pipe, and how many more pipes are still ahead?

You are "easily" off-base with your sunny proclamation. This is clearly only the start of the Big Dig, West Coast Edition.

The thing that stood out most to me was that the current contractors are JUST NOW probing the soil to check for other obstructions? Shouldn't they have done this before they even started, not after they hit a steel pipe?

Monoraaaaaail
*Jazz hands*
Monoraaaaaail!
*JAZZ HANDS*
MONORAAAAAAAIL!
*VIGOROUS, VIGOROUS JAZZ HANDS*

How much was the monorail system?

Well,this just proves that the city doesn't know its ass in a hole in the ground... It throws money at projects that take 50 to 100 years to build and doesn't think ahead or about what they already build underground...at least it wasn't a gas line,sewer pipe or a water/steam main...

@2, @5. Rational and correct, thanks.
@ most everybody else:
fire the contractor!
dismantle SDOT and fire everyone there!
this will cause our city to go bankrupt!
Seattle will be a ghost town!
this is just like Boston's Big Dig!
everyone on this project is an idiot

Guess what? Huge earth-moving, forward-thinking physical public projects are subject to real-world issues such as gravity, weather, unknown conditions, statics and strength of materials, and, finally, humans running the show. There are hundreds of individual humans on this job and most of them are just as smart as you are, if not more so.
Issues like this are not resolved by the click of a mouse or a spreadsheet (or a snotty comment on some blog). It's real, physical, mud and rain, and hands-on work.
I wonder what the commentary would have been like if there had been commentary for the viaduct and I5?

I look forward to the near future, where this abandoned hole in the ground is a suitable playground for graffiti artists, urban spelunkers, and the homeless.

Lots of pessimists on this commenting section. The blockage is only an engineering problem and some engineers are having the time of their lives figuring out how to solve it. If anything, this experience will make tunnel boring more efficient for all similar projects in the future. The only thing the project really needs to change is the director who cannot seem to plan effectively.

We in Des Moines can only laugh at Seattle. Fortunately, you are your own city so we won't have to help pay for your usual idiocy.

Boston's big dig went from a cheery initial estimate of 2.8 Billion$ to 14.6 billion dollars. Current estimates are that by the time the needed fixes are done it will be 22 billion dollars.

Seattle is going to have to work hard to beat that, but I'm sure we can do it with the giant minds we have estimating and managing the project. Why we haven't even found any Archeological sites or figured out we will have the same problem with Rat migration mitigation.

The difference is that the big dig was in large part Tip O'Neil's parting gift of most of the Northeast Federal Highway funds. In Seattle, cost overruns will be paid for by the Seattle Homeowners who will get no use out of the new tunnel since it bypasses downtown.

Stay tuned for expressions of shock and surprise from the city council.

In our design course at UW for Civil Engineering, the tunnel was just one of many options that we could analyze. However, there was one option that seemed fairly viable but never got proposed to the Seattle public. A coastal cable-stay bridge like this one, albeit shorter: http://www.urbika.com/projects/view/2371…

The Tunnel and the Bridge had similar difficulties, but the bridge foundation locations would be somewhat flexible until viable soil was located in the SR-99 footprint. Just curious, how many people against the Tunnel would also be against the Bridge, and how many would be for it?

In our design course at UW for Civil Engineering, the tunnel was just one of many options that we could analyze. However, there was one option that seemed fairly viable but never got proposed to the Seattle public. A coastal cable-stay bridge like this one, albeit shorter: http://www.urbika.com/projects/view/2371…

The Tunnel and the Bridge had similar difficulties, but the bridge foundation locations would be somewhat flexible until viable soil was located in the SR-99 footprint. Just curious, how many people against the Tunnel would also be against the Bridge, and how many would be for it?

Tunneling projects are always full of unforeseen conditions. Always

The tunnel boring and construction is a STATE project, not a City of Seattle project. That would be WSDOT as opposed to SDOT. City of Seattle has done the utility relocation portion, not the tunnel boring.

State of Washington WSDOT, is the same team that designed the 520 floating bridge replacement and sent to bid & construction before identifying their critically flawed design, resulting in cracked pontoons. 200 million and counting straight out of the State's pocket. The State needs to learn how to hold contractors accountable for design, engineering and what is called "means and methods" by writing a more thorough contract.

All these large projects have significant risk and unforeseen conditions, but the State can shift risk to the contractors via design review engineering and verification, existing condition acceptance.

Even horrible projects have bugs...