The right answer in Seattle’s great viaduct debate turned out to be one they never proposed (Spokane: homes, construction)

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

It's brilliant as long as the passengers are the only ones enjoying the scenery. I know if I am a driver on an elevated freeway in heavy traffic, the last thing I should be doing is enjoying the scenery.

Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. It was just a propaganda ploy to get people to buy cars, and build a lifestyle around cars.

[Blondebaerde]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I have a question about this. I may have been misinformed by a friend in Seattle, but he said that for the month that construction will have the viaduct and other routes closed from West Seattle, the City told people to deal with it by taking a month vacation, or by telecommuting. I have a hard time believing that. For one thing, the water taxi could double up its service possibly, to take people downtown, and from there they could get buses to wherever they need to go beyond downtown.

How is the problem of access to downtown from W Seattle really being handled, does anyone here know?

And why did they build a tunnel, that apparently will be inadequate from the get-go, in terms of the capacity it can accommodate? Why will there be no downtown exits? This doesn't make sense. How are people supposed to commute to downtown?

To use mass transit, Ruth. They're shouting it between the lines, so to speak!

Literally every time I go downtown in a SOV, near surface streets south of (about) Mercer Maze over there at SLU at peak commute times, it is a major train wreck in terms of movement. I just don't do it. Amusingly, I've discovered that counter-commute (5-ish) heading IN from Kirkland, to points north of that maze, is pretty tolerable (37 min DT Kirkland to the Space Needle, yesterday, at 4:45pm in scattered showers).

I'm a pretty big fan of the routes that go Eastside to Downtown, King County Transit. And the LINK. There are issues, sure, and they do collect tons of data for analysis and improvements that are incremental.

I don't know much about routes from West Seattle and White Center, though. Perhaps someone else does.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Returning2USA

If I understand the local news correctly, the water taxi service is running more frequent sailings.

Yes, telecommuting was encouraged.

Also, (to paraphrase) "try not to get angry at your fellow drivers. We're all in this together," and 'advice' like that.



I don't know anything about that at this point - but it would not surprise me at all.

Seattle screwing up a transportation project. It's in the Seattle DNA.

Thanks for your feedback. Encouraging telecommuting shows a complete disconnect with the nature of many office jobs in the city. Many city jobs are customer-service oriented. All the university jobs revolve around services to students, maintenance of campus physical plant, etc. MOST jobs are not tele-commutable. It's a nonsensical suggestion. Sure the techies in W Seattle might be able to do that, but they're a small percentage of the overall population.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Blondebaerde

To use mass transit, Ruth. They're shouting it between the lines, so to speak!

Thanks, BB, but the question was specific to W Seattle commuters, who will be cut off completely, from what I understand, except for the water taxi. Transit uses the viaduct and W Seattle Bridge, which will be torn down. But I agree overall, that people should use transit more, and transit should improve, to increase convenience, generally speaking.

[BATCAT]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

...he said that for the month that construction will have the viaduct and other routes closed from West Seattle, the City told people to deal with it by taking a month vacation, or by telecommuting. I have a hard time believing that. For one thing, the water taxi could double up its service possibly, to take people downtown, and from there they could get buses to wherever they need to go beyond downtown.

WSDOT's site (if that's what he's referring to) offers a number of suggestions, among them telecommuting or taking time off, but it hardly just announced "telecommute or take time off, ok bye!" Here is the list from the WSDOT site:

• shift your travel time to avoid the busiest times on the roadway
• Bike or walk to work or school
• Start or join a carpool, vanpool or vanshare
• Start a telecommute program for employees
• Use transit, particularly light rail and King County Water Taxi
• Stay off the road: work from home, postpone discretionary trips, take time off
• Be prepared for your new route when the closure ends and the new tunnel opens.

As you alluded to, the Water Taxi is getting increased service. Bus service are using alternate routes and will continue. There will also be the "Ride 2" van, which offers on-demand service to and from the Alaska Junction and Seacrest Dock.


So, the city is definitely trying to mitigate the impact... but it still may be pretty rough.


Some employers (my wife's, for one) are also offering increasingly flexible hours during the closure). Ms. BATCAT will be doing something along the lines of working at the office 5:30am to 1:30pm- then telecommuting a couple hours- Mon-Thurs, plus coming in for a few hours on Sundays.

And why did they build a tunnel, that apparently will be inadequate from the get-go, in terms of the capacity it can accommodate? Why will there be no downtown exits? This doesn't make sense. How are people supposed to commute to downtown?

Weren't you here back then? This was a HUGE debate. Suffice it to say a lot of people didn't think the tunnel was the best option (myself included), but we didn't win.

[rjshae]

Well technically the tunnel is providing the same flow rate solution as the viaduct: stacked roadways. The tunnel is just a (far) more costly approach. If cost were the only factor, the viaduct was a much better solution.


Per Wikipedia: viaduct cost in 2016 dollars: $131 million; tunnel cost: $3.29 billion. That's a 25-fold increase.

[mhays25]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

And why did they build a tunnel, that apparently will be inadequate from the get-go, in terms of the capacity it can accommodate? Why will there be no downtown exits? This doesn't make sense. How are people supposed to commute to downtown?

The biggest gap is probably communication. The final result solves all of that but not everybody knows that.

The tunnel is a bypass, with plenty of capacity for that role...actually more than the current tunnel due to the breakdown lanes.

Local traffic capacity for anyone heading for Downtown or Ballard will be replaced by the new boulevard along the waterfront including its direct route to Elliott/Western. That'll take a couple years.

As for "go on vacation," the solution for three weeks (as WSDOT and every other organization knows) is a bunch of small solutions and workarounds....some people shift hours slightly, some telecommute, some go on vacation, some carpool, some switch to transit, some stay in hotels or with friends near work (or at the right end of town), and so on. If a decent number of people/companies/etc. do solutions like those, then the system can handle the rest with much less impact.

[mhays25]

Originally Posted by rjshae

Well technically the tunnel is providing the same flow rate solution as the viaduct: stacked roadways. The tunnel is just a (far) more costly approach. If cost were the only factor, the viaduct was a much better solution.


Per Wikipedia: viaduct cost in 2016 dollars: $131 million; tunnel cost: $3.29 billion. That's a 25-fold increase.

I'm not sure whether you're implying that a replacement viaduct would have been cheap. This was actually studied...the estimates were lower but still in the billions....and the structure would have been wider and taller to boot.

[Ira500]

A replacement viaduct would have had a similar cost and been even uglier, but they could have done a serious earthquake retrofit of the existing viaduct for a few hundred million dollars.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mhays25

The biggest gap is probably communication. The final result solves all of that but not everybody knows that.

The tunnel is a bypass, with plenty of capacity for that role...actually more than the current tunnel due to the breakdown lanes.

Local traffic capacity for anyone heading for Downtown or Ballard will be replaced by the new boulevard along the waterfront including its direct route to Elliott/Western. That'll take a couple years.

As for "go on vacation," the solution for three weeks (as WSDOT and every other organization knows) is a bunch of small solutions and workarounds....some people shift hours slightly, some telecommute, some go on vacation, some carpool, some switch to transit, some stay in hotels or with friends near work (or at the right end of town), and so on. If a decent number of people/companies/etc. do solutions like those, then the system can handle the rest with much less impact.

Switch to transit? But aside from the water taxi, that's not an option for West Seattle. The transit used parts of the roadway system that are being dismantled.

Oh well. I guess there was no way to avoid a temporary disruption. It's a little strange for people who have to go to work, though. I guess they'll have to use the water taxi, and then transit once they're in downtown.