metrognome
hammerhead — I guess I’m confused; in your first post, you said, “so not only am i going to loose hwy 99 in a few years…” A lot of the traffic on 99 is to or from or through South Park and other southwest neighborhoods, so I assumed that ‘losing the tunnel’ meant you thought the viaduct closure would negatively affect people in South Park. I know that folks in Ballard, which is nowhere the viaduct, are extremely concerned about this issue. Why — because Ballard commercial and industrial businesses, not to mention residents, can most easily reach Ballard from south of downtown by taking the viaduct to Elliott; the alternative by surface streets or I-5 would be extremely costly and time-consuming. I assume the same is true for South Park and other south end neighborhoods that are not near the actual viaduct. The issues are freight and passenger travel patterns, direct and indirect business and personal costs incurred by longer travel times, etc. Due to the geologic features in this region, you rarely can travel in a direct line between point A and Point B; if the existing route that your business and passenger travel needs depend on goes away, the alternate route is not 30 seconds away on the next street on the grid pattern; it is over the river and through the woods.
Here is some info on current viaduct traffic volumes from the link below; if you do some browsing, you can probably find more detailed info on traffic origins and destinations:
“The current viaduct carries approx. 110,000 vehicles per day just south of the mid-town ramps. Of this amount, approx. 17,000 vehicles enter or exit downtown at Columbia and Seneca streets, and 33,000 exit or enter at Elliott and Western avenues toward Belltown, Uptown, and neighborhoods along the 15th Avenue and Elliott Avenue corridor. The remaining 60,000 vehicles continue north through the Battery Street Tunnel, either exiting in the South Lake Union/Queen Anne area or continuing north across the Ship Canal.”
I retired a year ago, so my info on the viaduct remaining open may be wrong. Here’s the link to the WSDOT viaduct website: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/
In your second post, you said, ‘it will destroy south park if that bridge is not replaced.’ I assume ‘that bridge’ means the South Park bridge. I have no doubt that the closure, if it happens, will impact residents and business at that some may move or close. The reality is that, for the most part, people adjust — they commute at a different time of day, they find a new route, businesses get creative with sales, etc. I also have no doubt that the more pressure South Parkers can apply and the more specific they can be about potential costs of the closure, the more likely that something will be done. Or not. The reality is that the backlog of deferred maintenance is high and the pot of money is small. And would be significantly smaller if not for stimulus money being used to leverage other funds.