Viaduct-tunnel/City of Seattle |
Right next to the Crosscut article headlined “The tunnel solution for the Viaduct is too risky,” are these links to encouraging stories from other news organizations: “Ideas debated about using private development to help pay for Viaduct park” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), “Gregoire distances herself from car tabs portion of the Viaduct tunnel deal” (Times), “Tolls probably needed to cover full cost of waterfront tunnel, state says” (Tacoma News Tribune).
It’s never easy, is it?
Approved about a month ago by the top elected officials at Washington state, King County and Seattle, the tunnel – why has no one called it the “vunnel” yet?, since it is loosely expected to approximate the current Alaskan Way viaduct – the underground plan has been on the table for a long time. Its main problem has been that it’s been viewed as the Rolex plan – nice, maybe preferable, but awfully expensive.
Matt Fiske at Crosscut sums up the issues, which include the financial concerns (fair enough) but also adds this:
“My father Tyman Fikse was an expert who invented many tunneling technologies and spent his career designing massive tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for projects around the world. If there is one thing hanging out with “sandhogs” as a kid and riding muck trains miles in the dark deep below ground taught me, it is this: The earth will surprise you. Consider: The ground between preliminary core samples can change most unexpectedly. Geologic pressures are enormous. Tunnel liners shift and spring leaks. Gases escape — or worse. The best hard-rock boring machine will become gunked-up to a standstill if it is surprised by a section of sand or clay. Stuff happens. Deep tunnels are marvels of engineering that are also among the most difficult projects to plan in advance. To pretend otherwise is delusion. Remove the blinders and the real-world cost of the deep-bore tunnel will easily be double the current guess of $2.8 billion.”
All of which sounds real-world. And yet . . . they had to do something.
So now they – and especially their successors (one of the signatories, King County executive Ron Sims, already is almost outta here) – get to ride the tiger.
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