New Viaduct Options
Larry Lange reports in the P-I. Here's my favorite:
A third "surface" option similar to the second but with waterfront traffic handled using six lanes on Alaskan Way and Western Avenue. Estimated speed: 30 mph. With all three "surface" Third Avenue would be restricted to transit traffic downtown and 10-minute Metro "Rapid Ride" service is assumed on Aurora Avenue, West Mercer and from West Seattle.
Several of the other alternatives assume a First Avenue streetcar in the scenario. I don't get that. I mean, a First Ave streetcar is cool and all, but how does it help displaced Viaduct traffic? All the people who jump on the Viaduct to get from Pioneer Square to Belltown? Then again, one of the other alternatives assumes a Lake Forest Park Park-and-Ride. How that affects the Viaduct mystifies me. But traffic flows are crazy things, and I defer to the experts.
Politically, though, it seems like the ones that make major changes to I-5 -- like a single managed toll lane -- are going to be the most difficult and time-consuming to implement.
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The First Hill streetcar is last mile travel. You'd be getting people who, say, live in Tukwila, and would take Link or Sounder into town except that the transfer to get to the hospitals is such a pain that they take 5 instead - but the streetcar takes them off the freeway. In the lane space they leave on 5, people currently using 99 move in.
The alternatives are more about offering options to 5 users so that the 99 users who don't have options move over.
Yes, reviewing these options shows that the planning is essentially for people to take express buses to the city core and then transfer to streetcars or local buses.
Essentially, this latest round of ideas is a "run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes" for simply taking 99 off the table as a freeway going through Seattle. This is the only way Seattle can reclaim its waterfront, so I'm hoping the movers and shakers will be pushing the streetcar solution.