Well I’m just a tad surprised to say the least. Where is the money going to come from? Does this mean the viaduct will be open till the tunnel is open? What will the waterfront look like? What is the project phasing, ie will they build the surface option then build the tunnel later? What kind of transit improvements if any will be include. How will this affect CO2 emissions? These are just a few of my questions.
We better get some clarification soon.
UPDATE: via the Times
“That work is peeling off more than $1 billion of the $2.8 billion set aside by the Washington Legislature, leaving some people to question whether the remaining money is enough to build tunnel. However, the governor’s office says it expects the tunnel can be dug for $1.6 to $1.8 billion.”
Really? A tunnel for 1.8 billion? I have a very had time believing that.
Wow. Thanks for posting this. I’m a bit surprised. Disappointed that there won’t be HOV lanes or rail through it. But there’s an unwritten rule of politics that the most expensive option usually wins, because it gets the most support. I think we have validation of that theory here. Watch Obama’s $700B stimulus bill get jacked up to $1.2T in congress this spring and you’ll see another example of this.
I hope this will be subject to the same environmental analysis as link was. Remember all those ridiculous articles suggesting that LINK was an environmental net negative because of the costs of tunneling?
Anyway — I can live with it. I want to get this issue off the table. But you’re right, there are a ton — TON — of unresolved issues here. Starting with the cost.
It’s all good. It should be built and hopefully the cost will keep the state from building something else that shouldn’t be built. Twenty years from now it can be converted to a second N-S light rail alignment.
The state DOT thought they could build a new freeway on the waterfront. Check out the comments on the P-I thread. The freeway crowd is livid, and they don’t want just four lanes- they want six or eight.
I just hope that Nickels, Sims, and Gregoire have linked arms here and will put this thing through. We’ll thank them later. It’s fine to talk about how congestion with the surface option would have made everyone switch to transit, but the fact is the region carelessly allowed 500,000 people too many to move here and that has to be dealt with too.
As for niggling about the details, you won’t hear it from me. These things aren’t (or shouldn’t be- Monorail RIP) decided at that level anyway.
Since the state is obviously trying to get stimulus money, fairly enough, why dont we ask for a deep bore tunnel for TRANSIT instead?
I mean, with say, $3 billion we could at least get from West Seattle, through a tunnel downtown. Then we just run a line up Aurora, which, according to Peter Newman is only $30 mill per km, or $48 mill per mile. Thus, we could probably get at least to Greenlake for like 1 billion more. I mean, this isnt quite to Ballard but ST3 could finish that part up and it would be much cheaper.
Good point, Josh. My ideal would be a transit tunnel through downtown, Belltown, and Queen Anne that pops out of QA hill at Mercer & Western. Then it continues at grade along the median up to Ballard. This way you avoid the slowdowns of Belltown and Lower QA, but you can still have stops there.