1. Records released in response to a public-disclosure request by opponents of the deep-bore tunnel on the downtown waterfront reveal that, according to the state department of transportation, tolling the new tunnel will dramatically decrease traffic in the tunnel itself—a finding that calls into question the need for the tunnel in the first place.
According to estimates produced by the Washington State DOT (WSDOT), a “low”-level toll (between $1.85 and $2.20) on the new tunnel would reduce estimated traffic from around 94,000 cars a day to around 67,000—a 27 percent reduction. Tolling at the “high” level (between $3 and $4) would reduce traffic to around 54,000 cars a day—a whopping 42 percent reduction.
One conclusion from those numbers is that providing disincentives to drive works—something proponents of the surface/transit alternative to replacing the viaduct have been saying all along. Make it harder to drive, and people find alternatives. Unfortunately, the other reality is that building the tunnel without providing alternatives (transit, fixes to city streets, improvements to—and tolling on—I-5) will dump cars onto the street grid—another good argument against the tunnel, and for the surface/transit option, which provides all those alternatives.
2. Scuttlebutt from last night’s packed birthday/congratulations party for King County Executive-Elect Dow Constantine at Kell’s in Pike Place Market: In addition to well-known aspirants Sen. Joe McDermott (D-34) and Rep. Zack Hudgins (D-11), state Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-34) is reportedly in the mix to replace Constantine on the county council.
We’ll have more details about the intrigue at the county later today, but the short version is that Nelson has put her name in the running to serve as a placeholder replacement for Constantine. A regular election for Constantine’s council seat will be held next November.
McDermott has stated publicly that no matter who the county council (officially nonpartisan; in reality divided 4-4 between Republicans and Democrats) picks as Constantine’s replacement, and whether they choose to fill the seat with a placeholder or someone who wants it permanently, he plans to run for the position next November.
Also at Constantine’s party (in addition to longtime supporters McDermott and Nelson): Normandy Park Mayor Shawn McEvoy, another contender for Constantine’s council seat. Council Republicans reportedly favor McEvoy over McDermott and Hudgins because he’s viewed as more conservative; because he doesn’t belong to the Democratic Party (he calls himself an “independent”); and because Hudgins and McDermott (especially McDermott) are closely linked to Constantine.
3. Don’t miss our post-election forum next Monday night at the Del Rey in Belltown (2332 First Ave.) And this is not your standard operating procedure forum.
Rather than post-election pontificating from pompous pundits and random consultants, we’ve lined up the political strategists from Team Mallahan and Team McGinn who actually helped come up with and execute this year’s campaign game plans.
McGinn strategist Bill Broadhead and Mallahan spokeswoman Charla Neuman will face off one more time as they fill you in on how they were playing, reading, and trying to outsmart one another.
The Seattle Channel’s C.R. Douglas will moderate, and I’ll be there to keep them honest.
Or we do both. Improve mobility within the downtown core trough the improvements the surface proponents wants, and maintain cross town mobility with the tunnel. I am not sure I want the rest of those 54k dropped onto the waterfront highway, I mean boulevard.
And if those people being disincentivized simply stay home or otherwise that is not exactly a good thing for our economy. Nor would it be if the various business needs being served by the viaduct are negatively impacted.
Still carrying water for SCAT?
How about a tiny bit more disclosure.
State REP Sharon Nelson from the 34th. She might be senator soon enough though.
@1, if Seattle is going to do its share of density in the growing King County the answer will have to be both, or darn close to both.
Put another 130,000 people in Seattle and I think I want a tunnel, but also much of the surface option, and mass transit consuming nearly half of the added capacity.
ECB, the tunnel plan includes surface & transit improvements in the AWV corridor. I suppose tolling on I-5 could be added though it would not be popular.
But if we want to see what life is like without a viaduct or tunnel, why don’t we just shut it down for 3 or 4 months and see what people do?
@5 Well the plan includes those things (transit, etc.) but they aren’t anywhere near fully funded and its hard to see where Seattle is going to find the billions needed to cover these since the state’s “proposed” spending doesn’t include them. Personally I’m waiting to see a plan that fully funds the project before I support or write the thing off. However, it seems like the state isn’t serious about putting a price tag on this thing (see debate on tolling returns and lack of funding for other aspects of the project that don’t include a big boring machine).
The 520 bridge plan is about $2 billion short of funds it needs. I wonder where else in the region they might find $2 billion lying around. Certainly not in an unnecessary tunnel project along the Seattle waterfront.
If someone, like a newly elected mayor, wanted to find a way to reverse the tunnel decision, they might ally with their fellow city leaders across the lake to demand redirecting the tunnel money to the 520 bridge.
Perhaps said newly elected mayor can’t lead on this, given his statements on the tunnel in October, but he could say “well gee you’ve got a point” if a Bellevue or Kirkland or Redmond elected official raised the idea.
Olympia likes to keep the Eastside happy. The way to undermine state legislators’ support for a tunnel is to make it a regional issue and get the Eastside upset about all this money going to a gold-plated project Seattle doesn’t even want while the critical regional link replacement project remains underfunded.
Disincentives to drive, work the same way torture gets a terrorist to talk.
Re MF #1 -
The reduction in traffic choosing the tunnel due to tolling has been known for a long time. While I hate to sound…well, Ivan-y…if you read your own comment threads, you would know that. In fact, I believe that Chaz scored either a COTD or a runner up BECAUSE of the conversation that was being had regarding the various studies on tolling, amount of revenue, how many cars would opt out of the tolling, the $15mm per year that the County is supposed to do for increased transpo alternatives, etc. etc. etc.
This isn’t breaking news, or new news, this is very old news.
@6, that’s a common counter-argument, but with or without a tunnel, providing those “alternatives” will require local money, and most likely it will be exclusively local money.
@9, The way I read SB5768, the state has put a ceiling on revenue from tolling the tunnel at $400M. There’s no minimum amount of revenue from tolling required, even if the project goes over $2.4B. So if tolling doesn’t generate $$, the state makes up the difference (they committed a max of $2.8B). For this reason, I think the tolling debate is a red herring.
I don’t get the angst about having a piece of transportation infrastructure that isn’t used to full capacity the day it opens (with or without tolls). Aren’t we still anticipating that the city and the region will grow? Or is that “old thinking?”
@11 -
I was just saying that this issue was treated as if MF just broke this amazing news, and got up before 6 a.m. to do it, when this specific issue was fleshed out back in October. And what was being cited there were studies and reports that were months to years old. I just expect more from my Morning Fizz.
And I like tolling.
While I agree with its conclusions, a model doesn’t *prove* anything. It certainly doesn’t prove that disincentives reduce driving — rather, it’s built around the *assumption* that tolling reduces traffic. It takes that as a given, it doesn’t prove it.
And again, Josh, editing is a form of bias, item 1 is the example, just to close that loop for you.
@13 – Sorry Michael M, I was actually replying to the original post, not you. I get what you were saying.
I like the tolling on 167 that the other Mike likes, that should be used on the tunnel.
Other than the state’s obligation to the state’s road we have to pay for the rest. Mitigation transit can only be funded for the duration of the construction project.
@16 -
I was replying to Pete
And that last statement was just random.
“One conclusion from those numbers is that providing disincentives to drive works—something proponents of the surface/transit alternative to replacing the viaduct have been saying all along. Make it harder to drive, and people find alternatives.”
This is a false conclusion. The only true conclusion you can draw from this is that fewer people will drive through the tunnel if it is tolled, not that they will find alternates to driving. As someone who grew up on the east coast where we have lots of tolls, I know all about using alternate driving routes to avoid the tolls. It doesn’t mean people drove less.
20. In fact, they end up driving more by taking longer detours to get where they want to go and sitting in traffic along bottlenecked alternative routes, which burns more gas.
@19 – Yeah, I saw that after I posted. I don’t know why 12′s look like 11′s to me today. Blog foul on me.
Ian @20, I thing that history proves you wrong. When the old I-90 floating bridge sank and the new I-90 bridge was closed, a lot of the cross-lake traffic just went away — it didn’t all show up on 520 and the around-the-lake routes, it just went away. Same thing when I-5 lanes were closed 24/7 for resurfacing.
And this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s the mirror opposite of the induced demand (also called latent demand) effect that we see when new highway capacity is added. When the new greatly-expanded I-90 bridge opened up in the early 1990′s, cross-lake traffic shot up far beyond the normal projected growth rate.
“If you build it, they will come” is the rule for traffic on urban freeways, especially at rush hours — so it’s reasonable to assume the opposite holds true as well.
The car-o-holics want us to believe that driving is SO important for EVERY trip that drivers will always find a way to make that trip, no matter what. Real world experience says otherwise.
@22, One could say the same thing about bus service. Who cares if its cut, those trips are not that important anyway. Visiting friends and family, going out to dinner, etc, are not essential, but they sure add to our quality of life and for people not rich enough or lucky enough to live in walkable communities like Ballard, a car is quite important for such things.
Add some stats and citations, please. Anecdotal evidence isn’t going to work with this argument.
For Senator Kohl-Welles’ event, is there a charge to attending? I looked on the website and there are “sponsorship” levels, but I’m not sure if that means everyone (including broke college kids) has to become a sponsor to attend. Thanks!
Something is off in those estimates, Erica…
If there’s currently ~110,000 vehicles a day on the AWV, there’s no way in hell the starting number is 94,000 cars.
At LEAST 1/5 of the current traffic on the AWV is going to/from West Seattle/SW and Downtown.
@1, if Seattle is going to do its share of density in the growing King County the answer will have to be both, or darn close to both.
Put another 130,000 people in Seattle and I think I want a tunnel, but also much of the surface option, and mass transit consuming nearly half of the added capacity.