$10 To Cross 520?

I hardly ever drive over the SR-520 bridge as it is, but although I support the concept of tolls, I'm pretty sure I would just drive around the lake if this plan gets put in place:

Tolls to finance a new six-lane floating bridge across Lake Washington could be nearly $10 when the proposed replacement along State Route 520 is opened in 2015, a legislative committee has been told.

Financing and cost estimates for replacing the overcrowded and aging Evergreen Point floating bridge between Seattle and the suburbs east of the lake were presented Monday at a House Transportation Committee hearing.

In the most optimistic outlook with tolls to finance construction, the round-trip charge for motorists would range from $5.66 to $8.13 in today's dollars and $6.90 to $9.90 when traffic begins flowing over the new span in 2015, lawmakers were told.

The low end assumes that the same toll would be levied on Interstate 90 across the Mercer Island floating bridge and that money borrowed for a new span would be paid back over 40 years.

Yowza. $10 to cross the lake? No thank you. Of course, as someone that lives in Kenmore and works in Redmond, crossing the lake is rarely something I do.

I believe that high tolls would have the dual effect of paying for construction and reducing traffic as people make other commute decisions. Over time it would probably also cause people to re-think the wisdom of living and working on opposite sides of a major body of water. Of course, I've never understood why people would do that in the first place, tolls or not.

(Associated Press, NWCN, 01.30.2007)

Road Construction Costs Climb

It looks like we'll be getting even less road construction out of the RTID (if it even passes) than was previously thought.

The price tag for what was a $7.2 billion package of major new regional highways has risen by millions in the past year, leaving planners for a fall ballot measure searching for what to pursue and what to abandon.

The exact increase hasn't been calculated because a list developed a year ago didn't clearly define what projects would be built in the Interstate 405 and state Route 167 corridors. New cost estimates can't be compared with the original list in those cases, one state official said.

But new estimates circulated last week showed increases of more than $1.1 billion for just six of the biggest projects the Regional Transportation Investment District has on its list for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.
...
The package, intended to supplement state highway spending, is expected to be on the November ballot and needs approval of voters in at least the urban areas of the three counties. The higher costs aren't expected to change the estimated $107 per-household cost of new taxes to help finance the projects but the higher costs could at least scale some projects back, if not eliminate any.

So, a vote for the RTID is a vote for an ever-shrinking list of road additions and improvements, plus billions of dollars frittered away on toy trains that a tiny percentage of the population will utilize. Sounds like a great plan guys. Good luck with that.

(Larry Lange, Seattle P-I, 01.15.2007)

Viaduct: To Vote or Not To Vote

I would be remiss if I didn't review the current situation with the Viaduct upon my return to posting here. Of course the latest news is Mrs. Gregoire's push for a public vote. It seems to me that, she's trying to have it both ways with this course of action. On the one hand, she avoids having to make a decision herself, but on the other hand, she can "put the pressure on" and appear to be a strong leader.

Gov. Christine Gregoire on Thursday said the state would move ahead with replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with an elevated highway if the city of Seattle fails to let voters decide the project's future this spring.

Gregoire last month called for a public vote in Seattle to break the political stalemate over whether to build a more affordable elevated structure or a tunnel that she considers financially out of reach.

She wants the vote to take place before this year's legislative session ends in April. The session starts Monday.

In recent weeks, some Seattle City Council members have questioned whether the issue should go before voters.

The governor gave the ultimatum in an interview at her office. If the public doesn't vote before lawmakers leave town, "it's over," she said. "It's over because then I will instruct the Department of Transportation to move forward with the above-ground" option.

At least she is (apparently) putting her foot down. Of course, any public vote on the matter will not include my favorite option, because a bridge doesn't cost enough to be worthwhile to the politicians' political backers. But I digress.

One thing in particular that amused me in this latest batch of Viaduct news is the amazingly blatant flip-flop-flipping of Mayor Nickels.

March 9, 2006: "Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who is pushing hard for a tunnel, said he welcomes a public vote."

September 22, 2006: "Mayor Greg Nickels, who had initially supported a vote, said he changed his mind after learning of the new numbers, feeling they were too uncertain to send to a vote."

December 21, 2006: "Mayor Greg Nickels, a tunnel advocate, said last week he welcomed a vote. Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said Wednesday the mayor stands by that position."

So which one is it Greg? Is citizen input welcome, or are we too stupid to comprehend all the nuances of funding a "$4.6 billion" (yeah right) tunnel?

Also worth noting is Danny Westneat's editorial yesterday in which he suggests that the city do a trial run of sorts on life without the viaduct:

So here's my modest proposal: Let's just try it. Close the viaduct. It's unsafe anyway, remember? Let's come up with a thousand-point plan like they did for the bus tunnel and shut down the viaduct for a month or two. Then see what happens.

That sounds like a good way to (hopefully) settle the argument about whether or not the "no build" plan is a viable option. Personally I think it would be stupid to tear down the viaduct and not replace it with another freeway, but I'd rather the city do that than sink untold billions of dollars into Big Dig, part II.

(Andrew Garber & Bob Young, Seattle Times, 01.05.2007)
(Danny Westneat, Seattle Times, 01.07.2007)

Surprise! Traffic Getting Worse.

I think a good way to kick off the resumption of posting here would be to bring attention to the annual WSDOT Congestion Report. Here's a three-word summary that is sure to shock you: traffic got worse. Now enjoy some quotes from the press release:

To nearly no one’s surprise, the annual WSDOT congestion report released this week shows traffic congestion in the Puget Sound region is worse than it was two years ago.

The report tracks several measures of delay and congestion on major commuting routes. On 34 of the 35 commute routes analyzed, travel times increased at peak periods, speeds slowed, peaks lengthened, and the reliability of travel times worsened. All those factors resulted in reduced productivity of the freeway system, which means the system is less successful in meeting the need of people and freight to move around the region at the peak use hours.

“Several factors are playing a part in the build-up of congestion,” said state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald. “In the period from 2003 to 2005, the Central Puget Sound region added over 40,000 new jobs and over 70,000 new people. Growth is placing ever greater demands on the system.”

According to the state’s Chief Traffic Engineer Ted Trepanier, WSDOT’s efforts to operate the transportation system more efficiently are helping, but not by enough to offset the continuing pressures of more people and more trips on the freeways.

What troubles me more than traffic getting worse is that there does not appear to be any realistic plan to prevent it from continuing to get worse in the future. Puget Sound population is expected to continue to increase at a good rate, and yet there are virtually zero plans to increase road capacity in any serious way.

Instead it seems that all of the transportation schemes center around rail or "mass transit" systems that under even the most optimistic estimates will carry only a tiny percentage of the commuting public. How bad will traffic have to get before they actually decide to do something that will actually address the problem, instead of merely further utopian visions of an unattainable future?

As traffic jams affect more areas of the freeway system for longer periods of time, the importance of good driving becomes increasingly larger.

“On crowded freeways, bad driving practices cause traffic flow breakdowns and even result in accidents that can put traffic in gridlock for hours,” said Trepanier. “Fighting traffic congestion requires strong operational programs, delivery of new projects to build capacity and every-day attention by motorists to their own safe driving habits.”

Speaking of good driving, I believe that the biggest improvements in transportation will come not from mass transit or building roads, but from smarter, smaller cars. I think that within 50 years, we'll have fully automated cars drive themselves from point to point, communicating with each other in a wireless peer-to-peer network to automatically regulate congestion and avoid collisions. We're already well along the path, with incremental steps like adaptive cruise control and self-parking cars. If every car on the road was operating in sync with each other, freeway capacity would probably quadruple, since the need to maintain a "safe following distance" would be eliminated.

Anyway, now I've gone and put myself into fantasy Utopia dream mode. Even if self-driving cars are on the horizon, there's still a major traffic problem today that needs real solutions. I wonder when the policy-makers will wake up to that fact.

(Press Release, WSDOT, 11.15.2006)
(WSDOT Congestion Report, WSDOT, 11.22.2006)