Forget Tunnels, It's Bridge Time

It seems like every other story I post is about the Viaduct, but I just have to mention this Seattle Times editorial by guest columnist Earl J. Bell. If you thought you had heard all of the Viaduct replacement options (tunnel, rebuilt, tear-down, retrofit), you were wrong. Try this on for size: build a bridge over Elliott Bay.

Restricting the viaduct alternatives to two, equally unsatisfactory, options — rebuilding an elevated structure in the existing right-of-way, or digging a tunnel — is unnecessarily narrow and destined to produce a foregone conclusion. The expert panel should look at other alternatives, including a bridge over Elliott Bay.

In a classic decision-making approach, the alternatives would be weighed against something like the following criteria:

• Costs should fall within "assured funding" limitations;
• No damage should be done to existing businesses (they are extremely sensitive to disruptions);
• Any "improvement" should open the waterfront.

The first criterion, in the absence of greater assured funding, would exclude the tunnel, while the third would exclude rebuilding the elevated highway structure; the second would preclude both a rebuild and the tunnel.

Evidently, neither of these two alternatives is "achievable" if the above criteria are to be met simultaneously. It is not sufficient for an alternative to meet only one or two. Thus, "achievability" would require relaxing, modifying, or removing one or more criteria.

The only way to comply with these criteria simultaneously is to include one or more additional alternatives. Truly viable alternatives have not been included and thoroughly explored. We are bogged down in a phony dichotomy of "tunnel vs. rebuild." In the classic problem-solving scenario, the objective would be to find the least-cost alternative among those that are "achievable."

Many of us believe that there is but one way to meet all the criteria — a bridge over water. A new class of bridges, "cable-stayed," has surfaced in a variety of places to provide a potential solution. Cables are used not to suspend the bridge but to provide additional structural stability, where needed, to assure the bridge's integrity during high wind or seismic activity.

Costs less, doesn't disrupt traffic, looks cool... I have to say, Mr. Bell's idea is the best plan I've heard yet. Which of course probably means that the chances of it being implemented are somewhere between zero and "when Hell freezes over."

In other Viaduct news, the tunnel is apparently unpopular enough that a coalition of citizens has formed with the sole purpose of preventing a tunnel.

A group of citizens began organizing Thursday night to fight a tunnel-replacement proposal and demand an up-or-down public vote on it.

The vote must be agreed to by Seattle City Council members, who haven't yet declared themselves on the issue. Thursday, a group of about 50 people, most of them appearing critical of the $3.6 billion tunnel proposal, decided to form a committee to push for a tunnel vote this fall after a panel of experts reviews a plan for replacing the 53-year-old structure.

The critics said the tunnel was too costly, its construction would be too disruptive to waterfront business, and not enough thought was being put into less expensive alternatives as Mayor Greg Nickels continues his tunnel campaign.

"Seattle has a history of things that people didn't want and they got them shoved down their throat anyway," said Chip Marshall, a developer and longtime political activist. "Other solutions are dismissed."

I don't see why we can't have a public vote on all the viable options. Put the following choices on a ballot:

• do nothing
• retrofit
• rebuild
• tear down
• tunnel
• bridge Elliott Bay

Let the people decide. How hard is that?

(Earl J. Bell, Seattle Times, 07.26.2006)