About those big, bright, yellow stacks you’re seeing by The Viaduct

5:36 PM: That photo from a Highway 99 project webcam shows a new landmark in progress – two of the four bright-yellow ventilation stacks going up at what will be the “south operations building” for the tunnel. Each one is 40 feet tall, made of 3/8-inch-thick steel, and built in Longview; the other two will be within a day or so, according to WSDOT. The “north operations building” at the other end of the tunnel route will also have a set of stacks like this. Read more about this week’s installation here.

P.S. Still no new schedule for the tunneling machine, so far.

ADDED 6:38 PM: But there will be one soon, WSDOT says tonight: “Today, the Washington State Department of Transportation received a new schedule from Seattle Tunnel Partners, the SR 99 tunnel contractor. We intend to release this schedule information to the public, but first need time for a preliminary review. WSDOT and STP will provide an update on their repair efforts and their schedule sometime next week.”

KC July 7, 2015 (6:56 pm)

All we need is the tunnel and we will be all set.

What if… we never see the light at the end of the tunnel
If there is light it will likely be the porch light at the litigation office
The review of nothing is still nothing

David July 7, 2015 (8:07 pm)

It’s just a machine. It broke. That sucks. Your car can breakdown. Your water heater can break. Your dish washer can break. This is a complicated machine, it broke. Sucks. It’ll get repaired, finish the dig, and we’ll forget this ever happened and find a new “sky is falling” issue to worry about (earthquakes, volcanoes, jobs, traffic, etc). It’ll be ok.

sc July 7, 2015 (8:11 pm)

From a distance I thought they were “Minions” ;)

dsa July 7, 2015 (10:41 pm)

That’s the permanent color of the smoke stacks? The Seattle Design Commission is bonkers to approve it.

CanDo July 7, 2015 (11:16 pm)

Well, that’s just lovely. Do you suppose they forgot that painting them prior to installation might be easier or do we just get to live with the bright yellow?

Cerrito July 8, 2015 (12:00 am)

Yellow = sunny and happy. I suppose there are those who still wish they could pull the plug on the Big Wheel lights. Plenty of us are happy to see color in the city.

Dozer July 8, 2015 (7:01 am)

@David: sure. Just like a car. When you mortgaged your house to buy it, and it breaks down, the people you bought it from say it’s covered by a warranty but will not fix it and can’t give you a timeline for when the thing will be repaired. So you can’t use it, but you have to keep paying for it and you actually are unsure if you’ll ever get it fixed. So you can go bankrupt because of your idiotic expensive purchase. And you have very little recourse against the people who sold you this POS… Just like a car.

MWL July 8, 2015 (7:30 am)

@David
When your car breaks down it doesn’t cost everyone in the region a few extra billion dollars in overruns.
Nobody cares about the machine being broken. Everybody cares about the enormous delays and extra billions that is being poured into this hole.

Jon Wright July 8, 2015 (9:00 am)

Always impressed with the commenting public’s ability to turn any tunnel-related story into an “Oh no, we’re doomed” narrative. I’m with David.

Clayjustsayin July 8, 2015 (9:05 am)

The yellow color was chosen just to make sure everybody understands that there is at least SOME progress.

dcn July 8, 2015 (5:04 pm)

I like the Minion idea. Let’s paint faces with goggles and blue overalls on them.

Kc July 8, 2015 (5:26 pm)

We can only hope that it does not break again under when it bores under the viaduct… Remember they plan to shut the viaduct down when she bores under. I tend not to be a negative person but… I have thought what if she gets boring again we shut down the viaduct start boring under… She breaks again. And they say we will just dig a hole from the top and repair it, yes we will have to take the vaiduct down to get to it or she gets further under the city buildings and breaks

The tunnel is already a third smaller in capacity if and when this this gets built we will have added so much density to seattle it will obsolete

Only one thing to do… Take away a traffic lane and add a bike lane…

Trouble, trouble, trouble

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