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Well one alternative floated was to simply to demolish the unsafe viaduct with no replacement, as San Francisco did with the Embarcadero Freeway after the '89 e
by _delirium 12y ago
Well one alternative floated was to simply to demolish the unsafe viaduct with no replacement, as San Francisco did with the Embarcadero Freeway after the '89 earthquake. My preferred alternative, and much cheaper! However that wasn't a popular suggestion, probably because it would be worse for traffic (at least in the medium-term), especially given Seattle's not-great public transit. Another alternative is to rebuild the viaduct, which would be cheaper than a tunnel but still very expensive, and would probably require it to be closed in the interim anyway, because it basically needs a complete replacement of the unsound 1950s structure, not just more reinforcement. Or, of course, keep the viaduct as is and hope there aren't any major earthquakes...
- techsupporter 12y ago> Seattle's not-great public transit I like Seattle's public transit. As for the tunnel, how about giving the right-of-way to Sound Transit and let them build the Ballard/West Seattle rail route through there? They seem to be doing quite well at digging tunnels pretty much everywhere.
- larubbio 12y agoSeattle Transit Blog had a post that touched on that topic. (which I can't find) I think the reason to not do that is that the tunnel is too deep so you would not have stations downtown since the cost of each station is more then a transit only tunnel.
- Crito 12y agoWhat there is of Seattle's transit is good. The problem is that coverage is poor, it relies too heavily on buses (I'd love some more comprehensive regional rail...) and the buses are over capacity and underfunded. Otherwise it is sanitary (some other cities seem to have trouble keeping feces off of everything, but Seattle does well there) and often on time.
- InclinedPlane 12y agoAs for the last option, the viaduct is sinking, if it sinks too much they'll be forced to close it and it's already nearly half of the way there. So even if we tossed earthquake safety out the window the viaduct realistically doesn't have a long lifetime ahead of it.
- martinald 12y agoI agree, that would definitely be the best option. The money could've been allocated to transit improvements which would likely diffuse some of the congestion growth. $3bn would buy you an awful lot of transit.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago> Seattle's not-great public transit I've visited Seattle, but I live in Lexington, Kentucky, and believe me, it could be a lot worse.