Spring 2009 Issue - Special Report
Alaskan Way Viaduct
Posted: April 20, 2009
Northwest Connectivity
Think globally, act locally
Tip O’Neill famously said that “All politics is local” – and Alaskan Way Viaduct politics don’t get any more local than the Elliott Avenue on-ramp to the viaduct and State Route 99 just north of the Pike Place Market.
Extending into the on-ramp is a concrete intrusion known as a curb bulb. This particular bulb was installed to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the on-ramp to get to the market and other places to the south, even though they could have used a signalized crosswalk less than one block away.
City transportation planners insist curb bulbs do not restrict traffic flows. On some streets that might be true, but it’s not for the curb bulb on Elliott.
In ones, twos, and threes, ambling pedestrians cross the onramp whenever they feel like it, usually bringing one, two, or three cars and trucks to a halt. Sometimes during the day, this causes nothing but some frustration. It’s just another chapter in the ongoing urban interplay between pedestrians and motorists. It happens thousands of times in local intersections all over town. Most of the people crossing Elliott don’t even bother to look up.
But the Elliott curb bulb isn’t just local to the pedestrian crossing. It obstructs an onramp to SR 99, one of the busiest truck routes in the state, and, at peak travel times, if you take a more global look up from the ramp you see that the cumulative effect is a backup of cars, trucks, and buses that often extends north down Elliott for as far as the eye can see.
The same goes for a neighboring ramp at Western. The northbound traffic on the Western ramp frequently backs up onto the viaduct due to conflicts that occur between motorists, pedestrians, and transients on Western underneath the viaduct.
The good news is that all this may be improved by the deep bore tunnel plan, which would eliminate the curb bulb and open the way for other major improvements that would almost have to improve traffic flow.
But you have to wonder. Can you trust the city transportation planners – who thought the Elliott curb bulb was a good idea in the first place – to manage the new roadways? More to the point, can the industrial businesses in northwest Seattle trust the city?
Welcome to the front line in the battle to replace the viaduct with a deep bore tunnel.
For the past decade, business groups in Ballard and Fremont have battled the City of Seattle over a series of bike paths, curb bulbs, and roadway lane reductions along the handful of designated truck routes that provide freight and commuter access into northwest Seattle.
This history is problematic for the deep bore proposal for at least three reasons.
First, the deep bore option would move SR 99 away from its present connections at Elliott and Western, relocating the highway east to the deep bore tunnel. The ramps presently carry about 33,000 vehicles per day to and from the viaduct. That’s a full third of all viaduct traffic, and it’s a major planning challenge to figure out where these vehicles would go. Transportation planners call this the “northwest connectivity” issue.
Second, the most significant truck roads into and out of northwest Seattle are located inside or near the 43rd District of the Washington State Legislature. That district has been represented in the Washington State Legislature for the past 14 years by the Honorable Frank Chopp, D-Fremont. Representative Chopp has marshaled that seniority and strong personal political skills into an eight-year tenure as Speaker of the Washington State House of Representatives. That makes him a very influential person and the good folks in Fremont and Ballard have learned they can often rely on Speaker Chopp to do a good job representing them.
Third, downtown Ballard may be awash in condos, piercing studios, rock clubs, trendy restaurants, and construction sites, but the areas along the shore in Salmon Bay remain the home port for the North Pacific Fishing Fleet, a collection of some of the most successful seafood and fishing companies in the world.
Ten years ago the future of commercial fishing in Washington state seemed bleak. Washington’s offshore waters were depleted, and farmed salmon was both popular and cheap. Even in Alaska, where salmon runs remained abundant, the fishing industry suffered through a crippling downturn that started in the mid 1980s and lasted for 15 years.
But, as the 21st century approached, a handful of enterprising individuals perceived that America’s rising interest in healthy, organic foods might create a market for “wild Alaskan seafood.”
At about the same time in Alaska, innovative companies figured out more and more ways to create markets and products for the chum and pink varieties of salmon, which are more abundant and cheaper than the better known coho, Chinook, and sockeye varieties. Also in Alaska, and almost concurrently, the pollock fishery grew from being a fairly small share of the overall catch to become the largest edible fishery in the world.
These diverse, wealth-creating activities possess one thing in common in addition to proximity to saltwater, and that is proximity to Ballard along with “Baha Ballard,” otherwise known as Interbay.
Today, Alaska accounts for about 60% of the U.S. commercial seafood harvest, and close to two-thirds of all U.S. seafood exports. And year in, year out, about half the Alaska catch is caught by fishermen whose wives spend way too much time deciding whether to shop at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom’s or, maybe, the one at Northgate.
According to a survey by the Port of Seattle, commercial fishing boats utilizing port facilities bring in about $1.8 billion per year to the Seattle economy, while spending untold millions to purchase Seattle gear and supplies. And that doesn’t account for the value of the fish they catch or the money they spend in Alaska buying more things from Alaska outlets for companies based in Seattle, but with a much, much higher markup.
The port survey also doesn’t account for boats using private facilities like the Pacific Fishermen Shipyard on the north side of Lake Washington Ship Canal where Sig Hansen of Deadliest Catch TV fame recently brought his boat, the Northwestern, to get outfitted with a new rudder and 45,000 gallons of fuel before heading up north to work for a spell as a salmon tender.
A person who knows about such things estimates that each fishing boats pays, on average, about $200,000 per year in Ballard for boat maintenance and replacement parts. Or they buy the parts in Alaska from Alaska outlets for companies based in Seattle, with that famous Seattle-Alaska mark-up.
Yet while the north Pacific fleet is thriving, the farmed fish industry around here is pretty much in the tank. Even so, members of the north Pacific fleet, like the kids in the rock clubs, and the young people in the condos, and a few hundred lawyers from Magnolia, use the Elliott and Western ramps to get to the viaduct and SR 99.
What to do? All is not lost.
Under the deep bore option, although SR 99 would move east, Elliott and Western would not go away. They would be connected instead with a new four-lane roadway that would extend down a ramp over the railroad tracks to touch ground near the Pike Place Market Hillclimb in the footprint of the existing viaduct.
This road would become the main part of the new Alaskan Way surface street that would follow the present footprint of the viaduct to the Coleman Street ferry terminal, where it would become a six-lane road traveling south to reconnect with SR 99 somewhere near the sports stadiums.
The existing Alaskan Way surface road would continue to exist, connecting with the new road near the Hillclimb, then continuing in its present path north past the Port of Seattle headquarters on Pier 66 before tying into Broad.
As part of this new route, the present one-lane viaduct onramps at Elliott and Western would each be replaced by two new lanes that would blend into the four-lane ramp.
And, instead of having two crappy one-lane ramps carrying 33,000 vehicles daily, the four new lanes would need to handle only 25,000 vehicles because the other 8,000 vehicles would shift over to the deep bore tunnel. At least, that’s the traffic reduction predicted at this point by the transportation planners.
Sound good? Maybe. A four-lane road can carry lots of vehicles. The floating bridge for SR 520 carries 110,000 vehicles every day. But, it all depends on how the road is managed along the waterfront.
We say it’s time to think globally and act locally.
Globally speaking, the deep bore tunnel could solve some big, big problems. It would replace a damaged viaduct in a way that minimizes construction-related traffic disruption, allowing the regional economy and Interstate 5 to function while the replacement structure is built. That’s good. It might also allow an adequate volume of north-south traffic. That’s good. It might also allow us to revamp existing roadways, intersections, and curb bulbs that don’t work well now. That’s good. It might also end a bitter community controversy that has divided the city, and the city and the state, for years. That’s good, too.
But, locally speaking, the tunnel plan was presented in a manner that appeared to disregard the transportation needs of northwest Seattle, the North Pacific Fishing Fleet, and the 43rd Legislative District. That’s not just bad. It’s dumb.
Two steps might help. First, include a Ballard spur in the environmental review of the present deep-bore tunnel configuration. If it doesn’t pencil out, it doesn’t pencil out, but you don’t know that until you sharpen up the pencil and give it a try.
Second, speak softly and carry a big measuring stick, then use it to make sure there’s plenty of through capacity along Elliott and Western and all the way down the waterfront. Otherwise, the deep bore option might never get off the drawing board.
