Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Big Bertha
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
April 29, 2014 at 6:17 pm #807305
wakefloodParticipantI suspect that R/B is close to the mark on this. The tunnel group will hit their claim limit and file for bankruptcy. While the lawyers/arbiters sort that out, the City/State will solicit bids (if they haven’t already started to put the word out) to complete the tunnel portion of the work. It wouldn’t surprise me if the tunnel consortium was a re-bidder, either.
There’ll be some significant delay while that next agreement gets completed and the tunnel starts anew.
April 29, 2014 at 6:30 pm #807306
Alki WarriorParticipantJan.. this is political how can it not be? You just can’t throw this under a rug and forget about it. Especially if you own property and pay taxes on it. I bet the tax payers will have to endure the billion dollars in cost overruns. They always find a way to stick it to us.
April 29, 2014 at 6:48 pm #807307
JanSParticipantYou misunderstand, I think. It’s not liberals vs. conservatives. It’s about bad decisions in the legislature, as far as I’m concerned, no matter what their party is. Throwing around “it’s those liberals again” gets very tiresome.
April 29, 2014 at 7:43 pm #807308
Alki WarriorParticipantBut it is liberals and it is tiresome. Don’t get angry at me for pointing out the obvious who’s behind this mess. Would you rather have me blame the Republicans for the tunnel project? Let’s get real here. Weren’t you against the project before it started?
April 29, 2014 at 7:55 pm #807309
wakefloodParticipantOK, so AW, if you want to slap this one up on the “liberals” side, you have to give them credit when something gets done too. This state and city has had democratic leadership for many years – including several R’s who are to the left of many D’s now and indeed D’s to the right of R’s. (Call your Dan Evans and raise you a Dixie Lee Ray).
You give me the time frame you want to call our “liberal gov’t period” and I’ll start listing some stuff that goes in the Win column.
April 29, 2014 at 10:48 pm #807310
Alki WarriorParticipantLynn Peterson of the DOT was on Monson’s show again today and said that no matter how much the overruns will be the tax payers won’t be stuck paying for it. Monson predicted that the tunnel project will be pulled and the citizens of Seattle will be stuck with the bill.
But at what timeline? The contractor can take as long as it wants to before pulling the plug. Five years? ten years? And how much money will be sticked to the tax payers? This contractor also has a bad reputation in prior projects.
I blame the Republicans. Did that make you happy I said that?
“The only case the taxpayers would be paying for a cost overrun is if we go through our contingency money, and we have not done that yet. We have a pot of money set aside for things that are unforeseen and that right now is at $170 million plus or minus a couple million.
You can hear Lynn Peterson of DOT discussing the tunnel project with Dori Monson right here..
http://mynorthwest.com/76/2509874/WSDOT-No-guarantee-Seattle-tunnel-project-will-be-completed
April 29, 2014 at 11:14 pm #807311
Alki WarriorParticipantI apologize for thinking outside the lines of any articulate discussion here. My apologies.
April 29, 2014 at 11:49 pm #807312
JanSParticipantDon’t apologize. I simply disagree with you. Here’s a breakdown of legislature state by state. Scroll down and look at WA. It’s a bit of a mixture, but it’s usually the senate that calls the shots and guess who controls that…yeppers…Republicans. Ms. Gregoire did not do this on her own…it took both the liberal side and the conservative side to get this going.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures
April 30, 2014 at 12:24 am #807313
Alki WarriorParticipantWhat was Greg Nickels I forgot wasn’t he a Republican? I think Gregoire for sure was a Democrat.
April 30, 2014 at 1:03 am #807314
waynsterParticipantLook lets just say the tunnel was built so the rich could have their million dollar waterfront condos over looking the best view in town…. as for parking that won’t be available near the surface streets they will be packed and parking will cost a small fortune when it is available and what little there will be……as for buses well metro wont do that very good either after this last vote…. so dam if you do and dam if you didn’t…..
Alki…. Nickels is a democrat
April 30, 2014 at 1:27 am #807315
JanSParticipantNickels was a Dem., as was Gregoire.
April 30, 2014 at 1:28 am #807316
amaliaParticipantNot to be intolerant or difficult – but can’t people tell that this Alki Warrior is trolling? Why not ignore posts that don’t further thoughtful discussion?
April 30, 2014 at 1:33 am #807317
JanSParticipantAlki…the last Republican mayor of Seattle was James d’Orma Braman from 1964-1969
April 30, 2014 at 1:50 am #807318
Alki WarriorParticipantSo Jan.. my question is who are the Republicans involved in the tunnel project doonbogle inception? Didn’t Gregoire and Nickels strongly push the whole project through with their liberal business friends? I’m wondering if there was any opposition by the Republican party against this soon to be failed project. I can’t find any Republicans in the days of Nickels term who was in favor for this. Maybe I’m stupid Sorry for thinking outside the lines again.
April 30, 2014 at 3:37 am #807319
JoBParticipantAlki..
the blame game is tiresome..
the tunnel is not a liberal project..
the liberal project was rejected
i think by King County voters.. who are definitely not all liberal
but i don’t remember because it really doesn’t matter.
what matters is that the idiots in our state transportation department thought they were smart enough to write an iron-clad contract with a company that litigates for fun…
i don’t have a clue how they expected that to turn out well if there were problems.. but there you go
there are problems
and it isn’t turning out well
April 30, 2014 at 4:37 am #807320
JanSParticipantso, Alki, let me say this in another way. Mayor Nickels and Christine Gregoire did not get together fora friendly lunch and decide this themselves…there was more to this than that. The “evil Liberals did it” gets old. As JoB said, it’s a blame game, once more implying ” my team is better than your tea,”…lots of people were involved…and I doubt that all of them were those”dastardly liberals”, no matter how much you want it to be true.
And now I’m done.
April 30, 2014 at 3:11 pm #807321
Militant ModerateMemberSince we’re playing the Democrats v. Republicans game now …
Having lived in states in which Democrats cannot and do NOT get elected outside of major cities, if the Democrats are responsible for what a great city Seattle is and the awesomeness of Washington, I’d like to thank them.
And if folks aren’t happy here because of the dominance of the Democratic Party, go live in Republican-controlled Oklahoma, Mississippi, or Alabama. Life is too short to live somewhere where you aren’t happy.
Sure, the Dems aren’t perfect, and there are things here and there with which I think that I disagree with most of them.
But here’s the thing: The Democrats have not completely abandoned the notion that there’s such a thing as a “Quality of Life” issue. Contrast that with the GOP, whose mantra seems to be that taxes are theft, that the most important metric of public education (if it should exist at all) is how little it costs (down South, new high school football stadiums are exempted), any laws or oversight on business is straight out of ‘The Communist Manifesto,’ etc.
We’ve got it pretty good here!
And it’ll be even better once the tunnel is completed. You’ll see!
(ducks and runs)
April 30, 2014 at 3:53 pm #807322
miwsParticipantMay 1, 2014 at 12:02 pm #807323
redblackParticipanti also think that the state should have invested in a giant plunger to clear the inevitable traffic jams under downtown.
two lanes each way with exits at each end? yeah, there will be tunnel back-ups.
May 1, 2014 at 4:24 pm #807324
Alki WarriorParticipantWhen DOT announced the other day that there is a possibility that the project may never be completed, the city is still buying up hundreds of parcels along the way which includes people who live in their condo’s and who are being bullied into selling. How can they be allowed to conduct this type of behavior when the project has a high possibility of failure?
May 1, 2014 at 7:24 pm #807325
metrognomeParticipantAlki Warrior – listening to Dori Monsoon again? He is on record as wanting to bury Bertha, so of course he is going to break his arm patting himself on the back when WSDOT director Lynn Peterson gave an appropriate answer, given the current situation:
‘When Monson asked if she could say 100 percent that the project would be completed, Peterson said:
‘”No. I’m going to be skeptical about it, right. I think we’re going to remain skeptical until we get more information. We still have incomplete information from our contractor.”‘
http://mynorthwest.com/76/2509874/WSDOT-No-guarantee-Seattle-tunnel-project-will-be-completed
also, can you provide any documentation to your claim in post 70? I know the waterfront pretty well; I doubt that there are ‘hundreds of parcels’ being bought by the city. I have heard of one (a parking lot) that made news because the 100+ year-old owner but there may be others that haven’t made the news.
As for the potential cost overrun …
‘As of April 1, there are outstanding change order requests from STP to WSDOT on the SR 99 tunnel contract totaling $188 million. Of that $188 million, we have denied $157 million, over 80 percent. The remaining $31 million in requests is under review.
‘STP’s largest request to date is for $125 million in additional compensation and time because they believe the tunneling machine was damaged by a steel well casing originally installed by WSDOT.
‘Our position on this issue is clear: WSDOT informed STP and other prospective bidders of the well casing in documents contained within the request for proposals that was issued for the project in 2010. It is the contractor’s responsibility to ensure that their design and construction activities take into account all of the information provided to them. Therefore, we denied their request.’
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/Contents/Item/Display/1615 (includes more details on change order process)
May 1, 2014 at 7:31 pm #807326
metrognomeParticipantby the way, here is the city ordinance regarding condemnation of that lot:
http://clerk.seattle.gov/public/meetingrecords/2013/fullcouncil20131021_1.pdf
and a recent update
http://mynorthwest.com/11/2501119/Womans-fight-against-City-of-Seattle-will-continue-even-in-death
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.