Tacoma's "main downtown street is sinking"

If not for the hojillions of dollars it will likely cost to fix—oh, and the nasty traffic inconvenience it will cause—this would actually be pretty funny: Street near light rail could 'sink into a goo'

The city's main downtown street is sinking alongside the Link light rail line that went in four years ago.

It's not clear why, though city officials note the street is very old and the soil beneath it is weak.

Sound Transit says its light rail line is not the issue.

"We built a foundation for the light rail line that's having no problem," transit spokesman Geoff Patrick said. "That track is not sinking. It's the road on each side of the track that there are some issues with."
...
"The city doesn't believe that it's solely the fault of the light rail construction, but the slumping is probably somehow related to the overall project," he said.

No one tested the soil beneath Pacific Avenue before construction of the light rail line. If they had, they would have discovered that the subsurface is weak, substandard clay, Steve Shanafelt, Tacoma public works engineering division manager, told The News Tribune.

The light rail tracks and concrete intersections are in fine shape, Shanafelt said. But the asphalt roadway needs to be fixed within five years.

"If we don't get a grant, the street will sink into a goo," he said.

Whoops.

(Associated Press, Seattle P-I, 06.19.2006)