Safeco field, The Port of Seattle and the End Of The Road (I-90), originally uploaded by Michael Holden.
Another megaproject that would help Seattle would be an I-5 tunnel under the hills east of downtown Seattle. Today’s traffic data show that nearly 50 percent of the I-5 traffic goes through downtown Seattle without exiting. A tunnel for this through traffic would relieve I-5 congestion.
To follow the political ideology of restricting use of the car and curtailing mobility is to restrict and curtail the freedom of people. This is counter to the basic principles of our country.
Instead of car wars we should adopt a policy of dealing with cars and facilitating the use of the car for the American public.
I have lots of stupid ideas. But no one listens to me because I don’t have a fancy title.
I need a sugar daddy.
(Jealous of “VP of Transportation for Kemper Freeman”…)
how much longer does my freedom have to be curtailed by not having this tunnel? dig, baby, dig!
I would love to see the money spent on improving public transportation and reducing local traffic. This would free up the existing freeway for through traffic, and save the time, money, and added congestion of new construction. A more robust public transit system would definitely support growth and mobility in the Seattle area.
Not sure what he’s talking about in terms of length, number of lanes and exits, but there is no way this could cost less than $6-8 billion. For that much, you could build a hell of a lot of completely grade-separated light rail, maybe 25-30 miles on top of the 55-miles already funded through ST1 and ST2.
We should adopt a policy of giving people what they want today, no matter how short sighted or harmful the result, and without regard to how it will affect their descendants. Maximum short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term sustainability: this is the American way. Provided we raise our children to worship wealth, accept ignorance, and admire greed, it will never occur to them to blame us.
+1000
You have won the internets today.
How much would it cost to get the buses to run on time?
It was designed for conversion to rail in the future. And not in the half-assed way the bus tunnel was, but with a real roadbed under the pavement and provision for power. And you’d want to have at least a couple of station boxes for buses anyway, even in a “bypass.”
I just saw the new James Bond movie the other night, and one of the best parts of the movie was when Bond gets into an Aston Martin from the very first Bond movie 50 years ago. It was really neat and nostalgic and all, but it didn’t make me want to go back in time to the 1960’s, like Bruce and Kemper apparently do. Here’s a memo: this is the year 2012! We don’t expand freeways anymore, because there’s lots of impacts and hidden costs and stuff!
Publicola reminds us ( http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/the-war-on-cars-is-a-hall) that Sightline reminded us months ago that drivers, young and old, are driving less:
http://daily.sightline.org/2012/04/05/young-people-are-drivi
http://daily.sightline.org/2012/08/15/older-boomers-less-dri
The sooner the Seattle Times goes out of business, the sooner we can go about building a sustainable Seattle.
Let’s tear down some more buildings so we can have more parking lots and let’s tear down the buildings that are adjacent to the freeways so we can widen them to ten lanes in each direction. Of course that won’t solve any problems since once you make more capacity the void is immediately filled.
Amanda, reality is that Seattle IS building an extensive public transportation system, albeit very slowly, because to do so is damn expensive. Light rail exists now in South Seattle and in a few years will be open through Capitol Hill to Husky Stadium, and after that further north. A streetcar network is in the process of being built too. I think the glass is “half-full” not “half-empty.”
If you visit Switzerland, you’ll see many highways pass right under the cities. Developing the land atop the tunnels is a way more efficient use of space.
Shouldn’t we have those by now? :)