Seattle 1-5 lanes/future freeways

[pw72]

Excellent post, and accurate. However, outside Seattle, where much growth is also occuring, the needs are a bit different.

[JBVirtuoso]

Originally Posted by pw72

Excellent post, and accurate. However, outside Seattle, where much growth is also occuring, the needs are a bit different.

True. I was focusing mostly on inner city highways. Outside of downtown, King County's needs are similar to those of Los Angeles. It's still fairly dense as far as suburbs are concerned, which means a high density of cars. Unfortunately, the example of Los Angeles probably says there's no real solution to the problem. There, more freeways have led to a massive (if well-connected) metro area that's completely snarled all over.

[PrincessoftheCape]

Originally Posted by JBVirtuoso

I wouldn't say Seattle really has this kind of "hatred" - it has a higher rate of car ownership than many other large cities in the US (NYC, Boston, DC, San Francisco, Chicago, and a few others).

I believe a strong case could be made that the rate of car ownership in Seattle is higher than those places because it has such a laughable mass transit system.

It should also be noted that these cities are also not doing much to expand highway capacity.

Why would they need to? Even a cursory glance at the highway systems serving Chicago, DC, Boston and NYC reveal that they are by in large complete. All four are served by a combination of heavy and light rail (or subways) radiating out from the urban core in numerous directions, as well as inner, outer, and (in the case Chicago and NYC) tertiary beltway systems. It also bears mentioning that Boston's CBD is puny when compared to most major American cities, so a tight, 'inner loop' would be absurd. As it stands, the downtown is fed by the Mass Pike, I-93, and some 'near highways' like Rt. 1 and Rt. 3A.

When it comes to San Francisco, geography is an obvious limiting factor (even more so than in Seattle) in precluding the construction of beltways. But, then again, San Francisco doesn't need to contend with a major north-south interstate running right through the center of downtown, nor do Oakland or San Jose. And, like the other cities, SF is served by sufficient heavy and light rail systems. By contrast, I-5 in Seattle has to handle local and long-distance traffic, all of it rapidly reduced from 4 lanes to 2 and then, briefly, 1 just as the highway hits the downtown. It is a horrendously ineffective design.

Manhattan, San Francisco, and DC barely have any inner city highways to begin
with.

And they're also served by some of the busiest subway and heavy rail networks in the world. Seattle has an exceedingly poor bus system on the verge of being scaled back.

Chicago has major highways in the city, but like Seattle, there's not really any
room to expand them at this point.

Chicago does not desperately require additional freeway capacity downtown.

The best example here of an urban highway expansion is probably Boston's Big
Dig, and we all know how that went.

This is a wrongheaded statement on a number of levels. First, the Big Dig never was an expansion. It was an effort to bury I-93 and portions of I-90, both of which -- as elevated freeways -- had bisected the already small urban core since their construction. By placing these freeways underground, officials hoped to reunify the North End with the rest of the city (just how successful this was is up for debate. The 'greenway' still feels like a big void cut in the center of the city).

Having said that, I have no idea what you mean by 'we all know how that went.' Like most major government projects, the Big Dig cost far more than it was originally slated to, and encountered massive delays. However, the goal of relocating the highways was achieved. The Big Dig also presented unique engineering challenges that, to be frank, an 'outer Seattle belt highway' simply would not face.

The places in the sunbelt that are expanding highways have rapidly growing
populations expanding outward from the city center, whereas growth in Seattle is
more focused on in-fill development.

Austin's new 130 toll highway was built with the specific intent to reroute through traffic outside the downtown. Obviously, there are different reasons to build highways depending on where you are. However, it seems that, in Seattle's case, it doesn't really matter if most of the growth is occurring downtown, because nothing is being done to address the through traffic which is causing all the problems in the first place. Seattle's highway system would likely be quite adequate if it wasn't funneling the combined weight of the most major west coast shipping highway right through the middle of downtown 24 hours a day.

[Backstrom]

Originally Posted by PrincessoftheCape

I wouldn't fight it. The problem is, simmering just beneath the surface for a lot of these people is a pronounced hatred of anything with an internal combustion engine. Until vehicles start burning a combination of fairy dust and moonbeams, roughly half of Seattle will despise anything that isn't pedal-powered.

This ideology is one of many that the lunatic local majority have adopted as a replacement for religion in their lives (sort of. It bears mentioning that many of these same people worship our sitting president as a stand-in deity). And they adhere to the tenets of this 'pseudo spirituality' as blindly and rigorously as a Georgia snake handler, with none of the accompanying compassion. Advocate building highways? You're a obviously heretic. Start gathering wood for the bonfire.

Wow. Okay. This was a fairly level-headed discussion until the sudden sweeping generalizations and ad-homs.

Just for the record, I own my own car and grew up in an Eastside household with five cars. And I'm a devout Christian, so my advocacy for non-auto transportation has not become a "replacement for religion."

Let me make clear what I actually believe. Sensible transportation policy must involve a multi-faceted approach that fundamentally evaluates mobility as the movement of people and goods, not cars, buses, and trucks. If King County is projected to add a million new residents over the course of a few decades, are you going to expand road capacity proportionally and effectively subsidize more suburban/exurban infrastructure? Or maintain existing infrastructure and invest in alternative modes of transportation?

I believe in choice. People should have options to decide which mode suits their travel the best. Many cities around the world may have terrible congestion, but at least they have options around it. On the other hand, if all you do is build roads while neglecting other modes, you leave everyone stranded, and effectively gridlock your economy while you're at it.

And let me clarify what I mean when I say that it's impossibly to keep pace with growth just by expanding road capacity. To get the stretch of I-5 between Northgate and Seattle to free-flow speeds day-round, you have expand the highway to some 20+ lanes. Just how are you going to do that without significant local and environmental impacts?

[MisfitBanana]

Has this been posted yet? http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/pdf/20...nualAme-mi.pdf

It's Tom Tom America's Traffic Index. It tracked traffic in 2013 and found that in the Americas, Seattle has the 8th worst traffic (for capital cities and/or cities with more than 800,000 residents).

I realize that doesn't relate to whether or not there will be future highways/freeways, but since it does have to do with Seattle traffic, I thought a lot of you might be interested in seeing that.

[PrincessoftheCape]

Originally Posted by MisfitBanana

Has this been posted yet? http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/pdf/20...nualAme-mi.pdf

It's Tom Tom America's Traffic Index. It tracked traffic in 2013 and found that in the Americas, Seattle has the 8th worst traffic (for capital cities and/or cities with more than 800,000 residents).

I realize that doesn't relate to whether or not there will be future highways/freeways, but since it does have to do with Seattle traffic, I thought a lot of you might be interested in seeing that.

And we have the 4th worst traffic in the U.S., which is a little more striking considering that Seattle is nowhere near the 4th largest metro area.

[sean98125]

Highway 18 is pretty much a limited access highway - almost a freeway at this point. There was a study done in 1998 about extending 18 north to Everett along the Snoqualmie River roughly along the route of 202, 203 and 2. They said it wouldn't save much travel time, but that's probably changed in the last 20 years, and with the increased number of people we're expecting to house here it might make sense.

You could convert 202 and 203 to a limited access highway and extend/expand 520 all the way to Duvall.

They are widening 522 and there are only two traffic lights in Maltby that they have to build around and you have a limited access road there as well.

There is only a mile or two of construction to connect 509 to I-5 in Seatac or Des Moines and you have a limited access highway from the port to points south. Or you can improve the 5/405/518 interchange and make 518 and maybe 509 as part of 405.

There are lots of places to expand the road system by just finishing the limited access highways that already exist.

[pw72]

Originally Posted by sean98125

Highway 18 is pretty much a limited access highway - almost a freeway at this point. There was a study done in 1998 about extending 18 north to Everett along the Snoqualmie River roughly along the route of 202, 203 and 2. They said it wouldn't save much travel time, but that's probably changed in the last 20 years, and with the increased number of people we're expecting to house here it might make sense.

You could convert 202 and 203 to a limited access highway and extend/expand 520 all the way to Duvall.

They are widening 522 and there are only two traffic lights in Maltby that they have to build around and you have a limited access road there as well.

There is only a mile or two of construction to connect 509 to I-5 in Seatac or Des Moines and you have a limited access highway from the port to points south. Or you can improve the 5/405/518 interchange and make 518 and maybe 509 as part of 405.

There are lots of places to expand the road system by just finishing the limited access highways that already exist.

Totally agree. There are already corridors in place than could be expanded into either wider highways, or even freeways. So, we should act on that. Why take over private or public land when the corridors are already in place. Yes, some real estate would be taken away, but a much better scenerio than building from scratch. WSDOT needs to get more aggressive with these projects before it becomes too late.

[pnwguy2]

The plan to connect I-5 and 509 was on the proposed WSDOT project list for years. Is it still? I believe this is an important project for the region. It would help cut down congestion on I-5, provide better airport access, and provide better access to West Seattle. And it wouldn't cost that much at the beginning, but perhaps would require widening 509 where it exists in the future.

[Seattle4321]

509 has tons of room to expand! Easily it could be 4 lanes each direction! A little of topic but I really think the interchange with 518/509 and burien should be completely re done. I hope burien gets better! The 509 expansion is still on the project list but it says it's unfounded do you guys think it'll be done anytime soon?