“Tunnel lite” toast too

February 13, 2007 at 12:58 pm | In Viaduct vote | 10 Comments

The ballots are supposed to go out in days … but now the state says, “don’t bother.” Incidentally, KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross proposed earlier that we all just boycott the viaduct tomorrow as a taste of what we’ll be facing regardless of its fate, since it’s going to be out of commission one way or another. Meantime, we’re awaiting the mayor’s reaction to the state’s latest missive. Perhaps Seattle should secede?

10 Comments

  1. “Dave Ross proposed earlier that we all just boycott the viaduct tomorrow”

    Genius!– then keep on boycotting and we won’t have to worry about it.

    Seriously, who needs a viaduct or a tunnel when you can leave the car at home to get to work.

    Comment by Keven — 1:36 pm February 13, 2007 #

  2. is it possible for us to have a “no confidence” vote in the lot of them? just curious….

    Comment by Jan — 3:10 pm February 13, 2007 #

  3. …really! and by the time they get this thing figured out, the oil reserves will be so depleted that we will no longer be able to afford to drive on their 6 lane bridge, tunnel “lite”, whatever-flavor-of-the-month option they give us. (and that’s IF we’re lucky enough to not have the current viaduct come crashing down beforehand….)

    Comment by dq — 3:52 pm February 13, 2007 #

  4. Am I out of the loop when it comes to the news or has anyone thought of what would happen with a tunnel during an earthquake???
    All I hear about is how unsafe the viaduct will be after another tembler.
    Personaly, I’ll take squishing over drowning anyday.

    Todd in Westwood

    Comment by Todd in Westwood — 8:03 pm February 13, 2007 #

  5. Todd…I have thought aobut that many times. No one has told me, proved to me that the landfill that the tunnel will go through is stable and won’t turn to jelly in an earthquake, or what all that boring underground would do to the seawall. I have said all along that the people need to be filled in on these details. They just expect us to follow blindly and blithely along…

    Comment by Jan — 11:33 pm February 13, 2007 #

  6. Jan – Any tunnel would be cut-and-cover, like Battery Street and Mercer Island. They have to build a new seawall regardless. They would do that as part of building tunnel – no boring required. My personal preference, however, is to do the wall separately and build the tunnel one cut-and-cover block at a time under WESTERN Avenue. Keeps everything moving during construction (which for the elevated monstrosity is up to 11 years).

    Comment by jd — 8:05 am February 14, 2007 #

  7. it was dead from the get go..

    Comment by Jiggers — 11:09 am February 14, 2007 #

  8. jd…it was my understanding that “Tunnel Lite”, which has now been discarded, was cut and cover, and that the original 6 lane tunnel was of the “big dig” variety – which requires boring…am I wrong on this?

    Comment by Jan — 12:24 pm February 14, 2007 #

  9. ’tis funny…I just read in a King 5 article on their website that “On Monday, Gregoire denied accusations by Seattle officials that the state was biased against the tunnel option.” Now…the city isn’t biased against a viaduct option? Oh, please…do we really ever see this ending and moving on with things?

    Comment by Jan — 3:14 pm February 14, 2007 #

  10. The plan all along was to do a cut and cover tunnel. It’s much cheaper than boring and because the soils along the water front are fill it makes it very difficult to bore a tunnel. Additionally a tunnel is actually one of the safer places to be in an earthquake as it moves with the surrounding soils. That’s not to say it couldn’t sustain some damage. But the crush versus drown argument isn’t educated.

    Comment by Dawson — 8:04 pm February 15, 2007 #

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