CNT’s Scott Bernstein was in Seattle with the Congress for the New Urbanism’s CNU John Norquist to talk with residents and city leaders there about their options for replacing the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct, which runs along the city’s waterfront. Options are being considered given concerns about the road’s structural integrity. CNT and CNU have been partnering on a project to look at the economic and environmental outcomes of replacing elevated highways — which has happened in places like San Francisco, Portland and Milwaukee — with at-grade lower-speed boulevards. Preliminary research on these three cities indicates that economic outcomes have been largely positive.

Scott discussed how the typical household in the Puget Sound region owns 2.4 cars and spends 22 percent of its income on transportation, mostly associated with the costs of driving. The regional yearly household transportation bill is therefore about $16.5 billion, or about $1 trillion over the lifetime of a viaduct replacement. Investing in transit could bring that bill down considerably. Scott was quoted as saying, “Getting people to think about transportation and the cost of living has been key to turning around bad decisions.”

John and Scott’s expert opinions and ideas created a lot of buzz, which you can read about in both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

And for another viewpoint about the Viaduct, read a column by Michael Hintze from the May 2006 issue of Planning magazine.

Planning Magazine

May 2006

Viewpoint

By Michael Hintze

Seattle has a well-deserved reputation as a green city. Among other things, it requires all new public buildings to be LEED-certified, and it encourages developers to seek certification as well. Our residents are extremely vocal about issues that affect the health of the city, so much so that critics complain about “paralysis by process.”

Yes, we do like process, which is one reason that the effort to replace a crumbling elevated highway along the central waterfront has hit a wall. The other reason is the $4.5 billion it would take to tear down the 52-year-old, double-decker Alaska Way Viaduct and replace it with a tunnel that promises to reconnect the beautiful but neglected waterfront with the downtown.

A tunnel replacement is the “preferred alternative” of Mayor Greg Nickels, the Puget Sound Regional Planning Commission, and the Washington Department of Transportation ” if they can come up with the money. The other alternative that is being presented is one that no one wants: an even larger elevated highway.

But there’s a third option ” one that has been ignored until recently. That is to replace the existing highway with a four-lane boulevard, while at the same time making substantial improvements to the downtown grid and adding more transit. This option would not only be cheaper than a tunnel, with its inevitable cost overruns, but also far more visionary. It foresees a future probably not too far off in which cars will not be the dominant means of transportation in Seattle, and it emphasizes transportation choice.

There is no doubt that the viaduct must come down. Seattle sits on two seismic faults, putting the drivers making the 110,000 daily trips on the viaduct at great risk. But if the tunnel were to be approved, the viaduct corridor would have to be shut down for at least three years. And during that time, traffic would have to be diverted to other routes. Transit would also have to be improved. Unnecessary trips would be discouraged.

So why not a bold move? No tunnel, no highway, but rather a solution that is appropriate for a state whose growth management law and regional planning policies specifically call for more transportation choice. Other cities ” San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Buffalo, among them ” have chosen not to replace crumbling highway infrastructure. Why not Seattle?

A recent report by a mayoral commission cited “getting people out of their cars” as the cornerstone of any meaningful plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet city officials continue to argue for the tunnel, an option that promises to accommodate even more cars. They say it’s needed to support the Port of Seattle although only four percent of container traffic now uses the viaduct, and that without a tunnel gridlock would be inevitable a conclusion based on incomplete modeling.

This might be the time to ask if the age of highway megaprojects is over. What happens to today’s billion-dollar roadway project when energy costs reduce the number of cars on the road? Shouldn’t we invest scarce public dollars in transportation modes that have a better chance of meeting our future needs? Shouldn’t we build infrastructure that moves us towards a more sustainable future?

Meanwhile, Seattle’s third option ” the so-called “surface plus transit” alternative ” is gaining momentum. Succumbing to public pressure, Mayor Nickels has agreed to put the viaduct replacement to a vote, and two city council members are calling for its inclusion on the November ballot. They are listening to a growing number of citizens who are concerned about scarce public funds, cost overruns, and having real transportation choices.

If the third option comes out ahead in the polls, it will receive the analysis it truly deserves and Seattle will be on the path towards diverse mobility rather than just automobile mobility.

Michael Hintze is a planner and urban designer with AHBL, a local consulting firm.

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