Highway 99 tunnel’s newest schedule: Digging again by year’s end?

(WSDOT-provided photo: Working on machine’s ‘main bearing’)

With a big reminder right in the middle of its announcement – “The state is not able to verify the contractor’s schedule” – WSDOT went public this morning with the newest projected schedule for the resumption of Highway 99 tunneling. It says contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners believes it will be digging again in late November, almost two years after its machine stopped, with a projected opening date of spring 2018. The schedule document made public by WSDOT is dated last month and goes through the tunnel-machine repairs piece by piece; WSDOT’s news release (read it in full here) quotes an STP executive as saying they couldn’t tell how long the repairs would take until they took the machine apart. It also says the cause of the damage discovered after the machine was shut down in December 2013 “has not been determined.” While the repair work continues, so does work on the tunnel’s portals, and WSDOT is showing off south-portal progress to media crews this morning.

AmandaKH July 17, 2015 (8:37 am)

Wow, what a debacle. An extremely expensive debacle.

Smokeycretin9 July 17, 2015 (8:56 am)

Clap…..clap…..clap

Wsrez July 17, 2015 (9:15 am)

Even if they started NOW, we could have a new viaduct or alternative built from scratch before the tunnel gets done, if it ever gets done. I’m just really hoping we avoid earthquakes in the area for at least 3 years because losing 99 will completely shut our city down. Grateful to live/work on the peninsula.

McSchwinn July 17, 2015 (9:31 am)

What happens when the machine breaks down again.., someplace where they can’t exhume it?

Build something that gets traffic moving..
I think ferry service from Seattle to Edmonds would move faster then traffic is moving now.

ChefJoe July 17, 2015 (9:47 am)

Yay! Fingers crossed that it won’t break down during the remaining 8/9ths of the tunnel boring distance.

ChefJoe July 17, 2015 (10:18 am)

McSchwinn, supposedly in the design specs of Bertha, they can disassemble the machine from the open rear all the way through to the front. Of course it would be a complicated process and I think at some depth you’d need to build a pressurization hatch behind the tunnel.

Flipjack July 17, 2015 (10:42 am)

There are no words…..it’s like we have complete idiots in charge of these projects and our money…. And is there any accountability?
No just greedy developers. Greed above the common good and needs of the citizens of Seattle and the rest of the state. And now look where it’s got them…. We gave them the rope and they hung themselves.

SomeGuy July 17, 2015 (10:43 am)

Surely the master contract includes significant financial penalties for such delays… right? Anyone? Hello? Anyone?

kobdvs July 17, 2015 (11:21 am)

@Flipjack … could you share a few facts to back up your adamant claim that this project is all about “greedy developers”? I’d love to know what you know.
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Or could you illuminate us all about how this supposed greed has been placed ahead of “the common good and needs of Seattle and the rest of the state.” Again, perhaps you know something I don’t – I allow for that possibility, even though I’m pretty sure you’re just ranting out of ignorance. Please prove me wrong.

kobdvs July 17, 2015 (11:24 am)

@SomeGuy …yes, there is a liquidated damages clause in the contract to put delay costs on the contractor. There will certainly be litigation about this project – STP (the contractor) already is trying to foist blame on WSDOT, precisely to avoid the liquidated damages clause. But because they know they have this substantial risk, it is in their best interest to get the project done as soon as they can. The risk for them (and by extension, WSDOT) grows with delay.

West Seattle Steve July 17, 2015 (12:53 pm)

@ ChefJoe, There is a hyperbolic chamber built into the cutter head to allow for inspections and cutter head replacement. They had a dive team on retainer while the TBM was running.
They are doing much more than replacing the bearing. That’s why they brought the cutter head up to the surface.

jetcitydude July 17, 2015 (2:36 pm)

@ kobdvs please dude you’re killing me. How naive are you not to think that this is nothing more than a money grabber? Think about it, who’s going to really benefit from this tragedy? Do you own property? Property owners down by the waterfront were given promises that this project would greatly inflate their real estate immensley. The politicians who shoved this down our throats also are benefitting from backroom deals with the devil. We will be stuck with the billion dollar cost overruns with an unfinished project. Bank it!

au July 17, 2015 (3:11 pm)

its all going swimmingly don’t ya think?

maybe not so much for us commoners but it certainly must be working out well for some,

ah seattle… all the pieces will fall in place shortly and the picture won’t be so nice…

i wonder if the tunnel was ever planned to be completed but rather built just far enough along for liable parties to be no longer responsible, its not going so well for them at them moment though is it?

somebody will have ‘egg on their face’ and somebody else will pay to clean it up

btw- i would love to be proven wrong and have a well designed functioning hiway 99 for our fair city but-ha-that’s already not possible, so lets just see if this deep bore tunnel will ever actually be completed….

ChefJoe July 17, 2015 (4:04 pm)

re: “There is a hyperbolic chamber built into the cutter head”

WS Steve, I can assure you this project had all sorts of hyperbole even before the cutter head arrived. :-)

http://www.seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2009123442_danny26.html
“We don’t envision any cost overruns on this project.” — Pearse Edwards, spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire

“The way I see it, I don’t think we’re going to have overruns.” — State House Transportation Chairwoman Judy Clibborn

“There won’t be any cost overruns.” — State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond

unknown July 17, 2015 (4:16 pm)

I don’t live in the City of Seattle but wasn’t this project voted in by the people of the City?

ChefJoe July 17, 2015 (4:45 pm)

Depends on where you focus on a “vote”. We had an advisory vote when initial plans for a cut-and-cover tunnel (with viaduct demo before construction) was on the ballot with a rebuild of the elevated structure, but not in direct competition (you could vote no on both or even yes on both). Both plans had less than half the vote (were rejected).
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They didn’t bother to ask again until it was a vote on a referendum about “should we force the council to revote on some procedural stuff related to the tunnel they did vote on already.”

unknown July 17, 2015 (7:12 pm)

My Dad was born in 1915 would had been 100 this past June 4th passed in 2009 and he said years before all of this that where they’re doing all this digging is nothing but “fill” and he remembers ice skating there too…I see nothing but problems on this whole project and HOPE no one gets hurt or killed.

bolo July 17, 2015 (7:57 pm)

Hey, if Bertha does not work out, maybe we can get the team that built El Chapo Guzmán’s prison escape tunnel to finish ours. They have a better track record?

kobdvs July 17, 2015 (8:02 pm)

Wow. Just … wow. I mean, I read the stories about the paranoid nuts in Texas with the Jedwen/Walmart concentration camp delusions and thnk, “yeah, but that’s Texas … ”
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Then I read “please dude you’re killing me. How naive are you not to think that this is nothing more than a money grabber? Think about it, who’s going to really benefit from this tragedy?”
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No facts. No details to this. Just that wonderfully self-assured certainty about a conspiracy fantasy that makes me realize Texas has nothing on us with stupid.
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And no, “dude” … I’m not a developer or land owner … far, far from. I have no skin in this game (I’m sure in your little world the only people who could disagree with you must be corrupt and “in on” your deluded conspiracy theory). But – and here’s the thing – I do have a brain … read and think for myself. And try to stay grounded in reality. Try it.

Don Schei July 17, 2015 (9:12 pm)

I just wish they were honest and say they do not know what they are doing but will do the best they can that someday this project will get done. The whole thing is embarrassing. Hong Kong built a new airport on a new island with roads, tunnels, and bridges in six years. The whole project is considered one of the great construction projects of the 20th century but Seattle can not complete an undersized tunnel that a person could walk in a few minutes. Street cars, bicycles, micro-housing, sounds like when Seattle says “progressive” they are really taking the city to the 1890s. Just my opinion.

Jon Wright July 17, 2015 (9:15 pm)

I bet you all would have pulled the plug on NASA in the mid 60s, too.

Theking July 17, 2015 (9:19 pm)

Sure glad the costly mistakes weren’t passed on to homeowners tax bills like our elected officials planned on doing.

R0b0 July 17, 2015 (9:41 pm)

Did you hear about the new start date for Bertha? Just out. She’s gonna start tunneling again Nov 23rd, the Mon before thanksgiving. Because if anyone’s comfortable working for 3 days and taking a long holiday, it’s Bertha the tunneling machine.

-Bill Radke on KUOW

Robert July 18, 2015 (7:16 am)

why anyone in their right mind would put a hole in the ground, through 70feet of fill ,to run live people through in earthquake country. is beyond dumb. there will be no fuel tankers, no flammable cargo, no twin trailers, one half the capacity of the viaduct, and above all no way out in the event of fire or catastrophy.. all this for some inflated ego trip of some greedy political hack that wants a leg-up on boston.
..

WSince86 July 18, 2015 (9:40 am)

Bolo – best post of the thread!!!

RayWest July 18, 2015 (12:29 pm)

It’s the total debacle I predicted it would be. I, like many other Seattlites voted against it, but they (our wonderful leaders) just went ahead and did it anyway. Now we have to deal with the resulting mess and the extra costs. The only good news is, I do not plan to be working in the north end of Seattle by the time this thing opens, and will at least not have to worry about dealing with the resulting traffic mess and tolls.

jeannine July 18, 2015 (4:19 pm)

can they pls get rid of bertha, and dig the tunnel another way? by shovel if necessary, like they did in the old days… surely it would be dug much faster.