Civic activists and planners in New Orleans have a wacky idea for the 2.2-mile elevated section of Interstate 10 known as the Clairborne Expressway: Remove it and replace it with a surface boulevard. Obviously, someone needs to clue them in on the wonders of deep-bore tunnel boring machines.
Today a coalition of groups, including the Congress for New Urbanism, released a report that advocates for the removal of the elevated freeway, citing many reasons familiar to those following the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement debate.
As noted in the Times Picayune, the report states that “high-speed freeway travel through urban downtowns is not necessary for urban mobility, due to the close proximity of destinations. A highly connected urban street grid provides a better way to move traffic to the complex array of destinations in a city.”
Here are before and after renderings from the report:
Yes, the Clairborne Expressway in New Orleans and the Alaskan Way Viaduct are situated in very different urban contexts. But the overarching concept applies equally to both: spending vast sums on single-purpose infrastructure for cars doesn’t make sense any more.
Back in 2006 the Congress for New Urbanism published a similar report making the case for a surface option to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. A salient tidbit from that report:
“Here is an alternative view. If people shop and use services closer to where they live, this is a positive contribution towards Seattle’s goals for vibrant neighborhoods and sustainability.”
They were as right about it then as they are now.
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Wow, the east coast is doing something more logically than the west. I can't decide if this surprises me or not… My childhood bias keeps telling me that if east coasters were so smart, they'd move to the west coast. I have a lot of soul searching to do.
The Viaduct is used much more for cross town traffic than that road, which is primarily a short duration route. I'd rather we take the crosstown traffic and put it underground then we can fight to keep the waterfront more multi-modal. I would like only one lane in each direction with bike and streetcar right-of-ways.
That's a trade-off that, ignoring the expense of the tunnel, could make the whole “vision” a lot more palatable – a truly people-oriented, multiple-modal waterfront solution, instead of the current massive boulevard + tunnel. Now, if you can persuade the tunnel boosting Chamber types to go along, you might have a winner.
I can't decide to agree or disagree with this. (Says the man with Bo Over the Top as his avatar)
Get ready for the cries of, “But that would never work here because of X,Y, and Z.” Cities across the US and the world continue to tear down freeways and replace them with surface-transit options; and it continues to work.
I think thats the next battle and on that you are going to have a lot of pro-tunnel people line up with Carry Moon and the Mayor. Plus that is a project the City has a lot more control over. But without the tunnel there is no way we get anything other than a rebuild or a massive boulevard down the waterfront.
I've been to NOLA several times and hate I-10. It has frustratingly few on/off ramps and does not provide good access to many areas it cuts through.
But this statement:
But the overarching concept applies equally to both: spending vast sums on single-purpose infrastructure for cars doesn’t make sense any more.
It does make sense if it means keeping 100 k, 80 k, or even 60 k (I've heard all these numbers cited) cars off the surface streets of Seattle. I'm a big fan of alternate transportation, bus, rail, bike, walk etc. and can't help but think sending the cars underground will make Seattle more accessable to alternate transportation, not less
As time goes on I am moving from a position of supporting the tunnel w/cost overrun provision removed to the surface option. But wouldn't a better comparison would be tearing out I-5 within the city limits, not SR99?
I think one of the main purposes is reduce the total amount of cars, not just move them.
Comparing apples to oranges. Seattle =/= New Orleans.
Wait, so Seattle isn't any other city but Seattle? Tell me more….
In other words, no shit, are you trying to say no comparisons can ever be made between two different cities?
(huh, I always considered that part of the country the south coast)
Not unless it supports his side. Sadly, there haven't been any highways that were torn down and resulted in city-crippling traffic jams.
You're right! Everything is exactly the same. No apples to oranges here!
Yes, but they call it “compare and contrast”, not “compare, note the similarities, and disregard the differences in order to prop up one's confirmation bias”.
Anc looks at the top of the page….
“HugeassCity, Opinion, The City”
Yep, thought it was Opinion. If you disagree with the comparison, why don't you inform all of us of why it doesn't work?
We prefer Gulf Coast.
New Orleans also a) lost much of their population from the fallout of some sort of natural disaster you may of heard of, hurricane ka-something, and b) like many other non-Seattle cities, New Orleans has a geographic layout that's allowed civil engineers in its formulative years to develop a comprehensive and redundant street grid that can easily absorb city traffic should they, say, decide to remove a freeway and just replace it with a surface-level parkway. Seattle's geography did not and does not allow such civil engineering luxury.
I'll certainly give you that, but “Comparing apples to oranges. Seattle =/= New Orleans.” is the same kind of knee-jerk reaction tunnel lovers retort when we point at SF's Embarcadero. If you have specific reasons why Seattle is oh-so-different, please list them.
right! wasn't there some sort of war there in the '90s? something about oil. you really have problems with oil down there.
To address your point, if my “apples to oranges” comment correlates with what so called “tunnel lovers” say (you claim), that is supposed to put me in league with “tunnel lovers”?
I will not bother to contruct a defense against an argument that is based on the most abused (by FOX news) logical fallacy.
Opinion and “confirmation bias” = not mutually exclusive.
How is this? That section of the city curves around a bend of the Mississippi much like the section of Seattle being discussed curves around Elliot Bay. Both have historical grids that due to the curve have odd crossings. Both sections of the cities primarily developed prefreeway.
Where are the dissimilarities?
Wait, so you're [Michael M.]? I'm confused.
I don't care if you're a tunnel lover. Just claiming the two cities are different is a waste of time. Please specify exactly how the two projects are different in ways that are relevant to the debate.
I'll start you off. NOLA and Seattle are similar in that they have highways running through them. This is relevant because NOLA believes that tearing down their freeway and not replacing it will improve their city, where Seattle believes it must spend billions on a tunnel to improve their city.
Now you go.
And your point? So how are the two situations dissimilar?
The world has a problem with oil. :/
Re; the above: I'm not Michael M. I made a similar comment above. Sorry for the confusion…
The bueden of proof is on you to prove that ithe similarities are there for it to work; Unless you are employing a “faith based” understanding that it will, in which case, there are some churches you should check out….
Dan, I'll take your comments more seriously if you propose closing I-5 instead of expanding and “streamlining” it. Try for consistency.
That section of the city curves around a bend of the Mississippi much like the section of Seattle being discussed curves around Elliot Bay. Both have historical grids that due to the curve have odd crossings. Both sections of the cities primarily developed prefreeway.
Where are the dissimilarities?
“The bueden of proof is on you to prove that ithe similarities are there for it to work” There is equal burden on both sides. We all want a city that works, we just disagree about the best strategy to make that happen. I will point out that my side doesn't involve spending billions of dollars on a road-only tunnel – something that should probably shift the burden of proof more toward your side. After all, if my side's wrong we can still build your* silly tunnel. If your side's wrong – whoops! there went a few billion dollars! sorry.
* I'm still confused if this is your silly tunnel. You seem to be a strong tunnel supporter, but you don't want to be lumped in with tunnel lovers. The distinction is too subtle for me to see.
One massive freeway removal at a time, man. And besides, all the I-5 adjustment proposed under the S/T option would be to remove the downtown bottleneck by taking out an offramp and utilizing some of the shoulder space. Not exactly the same as expansion through new freeway construction
Following that logic, Seattle 2050 =/= Seattle 2010 =/= Seattle 1960. Why should we be using antiquated, costly, and largely failed solutions to address our future needs?
That would be true if more than half of the trips on the Viaduct weren't people destined to/from downtown. All those cars will still be taking up surface street capacity. It would be even truer if the original 3-party agreement's transit capacity MVET hadn't been vetoed by the governor.
This is what's likely to be built with the viaduct money if we keep rejecting the tunnel.
http://www.tacomatomorrow.com/2010/07/highway-p...
Which project is worse for our region, an urban freeway that replaces existing capacity, or a new suburban freeway that's likely to induce sprawl and greenfield development?
if west coast were smart, they'd know east from south
When was the last time you tried to get through San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge?
Embarcadero was on on-ramp not a through highway – but you knew that.
New Orleans has just over half the population and double the land area.
Dan, the need for capacity would not have anything to do with the ore-Katrina population of 465,000 dropping to 91,000?
Here is the RAND 2006 repopulation study.
All we have to do in Seattle is damage 55% of the homes and drive off 400,000 citizens of Seattle.
Let's start with you, Dan. Let's keep the tunnel and send Dan, you can solve all of their problems.
New Orleans has just over half of the population now, 10 years ago they had sized their transit and road capacity to 3/4 of our population.
It is just, flat, fucking stupid, for anybody to compare Seattle to New Orleans.
The WSDOT number I've seen show that well more than half the cars using the viaduct ARE just passing through and not going to/from downtown.
But even if you you could make half of the cars that use the viaduct just magically “go away”, and put the remainder on surface streets, you would create traffic hell downtown.
I totally forgot I commented on this!
And that's not entirely true. I accept the comparisons with San Francisco, and if we had the transportation infrastructure in place, and dedication to transit, that they have, then I wouldn't have a problem with the Surface Street Option. But we don't.
Additionally, theirs is going through the center of the city, not along the waterfront. And (correct me if I'm wrong), they don't have the same population and transportation needs to both the north and south that Seattle has, as I understand.
Matt knows I <3 the tunnel
I wholeheartedly agree that we should have the comparisons with San Francisco, and, to a lesser extent, Portland and Vancouver, BC. All have many more similarities (be they topography, socio-economic issues, surrounding areas/cities). The glaring difference is the will and ability to fully fund and expand alternative transportation options.
I like the tunnel not just because it moves cars, but because it reduces lanes, gets rid of offramps through downtown, comes with $15mm/yr in transit improvements from Metro, has tolling, and isn't a 4 lane in each direction rebuild. I'm sure you would disagree when I say it, but I see the tunnel as the transit friendly alternative. Because it's an alternative to a rebuild, which is the only option that the State has seriously considered.
My ideal, of course, would be light rail from West Seattle and Ballard to downtown, streetcars along 2nd and 4th, and up Marion and down Union or University (I can't remember which is the westbound one way) as a loop (with the North/South segments being along 1st and 5th), and a surface street that is two lanes in each direction with buffered bike lanes and a center turn lane. It creates jobs to construct, guarantees long term jobs to operate the trains, and compliments the 3rd Ave Bus Only lanes and tunnel nicely (IMO).
Unfortunately, there isn't the support in Olympia to really fund such a massive transit undertaking (and not just my ideal, but anyone's ideal that makes sense), and I don't think there is the will in Seattle to undertake such a massive project on our own. The DSA would fight hard against any additional taxes on parking (which are necessary) or increases in the parking fees for street parking, and all hell would break loose from the outside of downtown folks if there was significant tolling on arterial roads.
You could go along with him, you seem to always have all the answers, or at least opinions. Judging by how often you post on here you seem to have a lot of free time, too.
The point is lots of cities, all with different situations, are doing this and it pretty much always works (in fact, I've yet to read about it ever failing). Your attempt at being clever/sarcastic has failed.
Wow, way to ape the talking points! That would be true if people were automatons who were unable to change behavior in response to new stimuli. What actually happens is that people see the viaduct and decide to take a crosstown trip simply because they can. When it is gone, they will change their habits and take different trips by different routes.
Oh my god, how is this belief so prevalent? Listen up, folks. The reason that many people are going downtown is because the viaduct is there! Do you think all those trips are commute trips that cannot be changed? Some of those trips are by choice, so many will disappear. Others will switch to transit. In the long term, more people will move downtown or switch jobs to somewhere else. The placement of highways actually drives the traffic, not the other way around. People act as if the traffic is what is fixed and the roads need to respond, but that is exactly the opposite of the truth. Road and transit capacity determines trip choices.
We should do that, too. I-5 has divided our city and caused much of the congestion downtown due to everyone trying to get on and off a limited number of exits. A distributed grid like Vancouver is much better.
Just curious – it seems it's prevalent based on studies. Can you provide your studies, or are you just speaking anecdotally?
The point is everyone at the time warned that there would be terrible traffic jams due to tearing down the embarcadero and it never happened. There might be a lesson there for us.
Well, again, the tunnel is a reduced capacity highway. Two lanes in each direction, not four. Tolling to collect revenue and encourage other forms of transportation. Stuff like that. Instead of just taking away a major roadway and replacing it with non-existent transit, it's weaning us off of that roadway (yet still in a pretty major way).
I'm not going to lie, though. I'm begging to get bored of the tunnel fight. I swear, each side is just using the same talking points, with a little bit of a twist here and there, or a little bit more information as it comes out, bending it to how it best fits our respective arguments.
I can't wait 'til it's over, and we can start arguing about other stuff.
And, I'm just saying, Publicola should do a happy hour get together sometime. I think some of these…discussions…would be more fun in person, and with a little bit of booze in me.
Most people don't take crosstown trips for the hell of it. They are going to work, visiting friends, enjoying a new restaurant, etc. These are all good things. I think the tunnel provides a great way to handle the needed cross town trips (which is less than the capacity of the current viaduct), and transit improvements can handle the rest, leaving a very open waterfront.
That simplistic view of transportation choices may be in vogue among the rabidly anti-road, but it is hardly accurate.
The best thing would be to de-densify downtown Seattle and to continue to grow centralized nodes like Renton, Northgate, Issaquah and Kent.
Then, connect them with highways, transit, bicycle boulevards.
Running a walled, noisy Inter-State through a dense neighborhood is not a good thing.
Side note which will make sense to nobody. I was watching the 1970 comedy classic “Cold Turkey” last night.
Interstate 10 is an interstate that runs along the southern part of the U.S. It is much more than just say, a state highway that is mostly used for a solitary geographic purpose (the port) or for the commute of local workers. A better comparison is removing I-5, just as previous poster commented. Also, New Orleans is in a swamp, where people are buried above aground in tombs that form what I like to call a necropolis because the grid in an above ground cemetery resembles that of a metropolis. Corpses are entombed above ground because otherwise the coffins float to the top, creating an unbecoming mess. The city grid itself is below sea level and protected only by a series of earthen levies engineered by the army corps. If the system of levies that protect the city were to completely fail, the Vieux Carre' would fill with 18 feet of water, and that is the oldest neighborhood built on the highest ground. All of these factors differentiate the demolition of the 10 and the boring of the tunnel as compared to our WA 99. The soil saturation provides for engineering hurdles for the tunnel boring machine and building a tunnel underground in a city that sits below sea level seems like another engineering travesty.
@zefwagner “The reason people that so many people are going downtown is because the viaduct is there”.
Really? And I always thought those big buildings were there because people had jobs to go to.
You imply that masses of people going to work “somewhere else” wouldn't result in its own complications.
Both the AWV and I-5 were built after downtown Seattle established itself as the employment center of the state. Taking either of them away won't change that.
Oooh! I know.
Can there please be a PCHH?
Please???
Pretty Please?????
A surface road in New Orleans is already below sea level. Frankly an elevated roadway in New Orleans seems sensible just from a safety standpoint.
What will Publicola do after the city signs off on the tunnel?
That is so true. If we can't take 99 we will start going to the West Seattle Zoo instead of the Woodland Park Zoo.
I personally hold this belief because I use 99 to commute to work and while 99 is not very busy much of the day it is jammed between 8-9 in the morning and 5-6 at night. I admit that it had not occurred to me that people might decide that rush hour was the perfect time to take an unneccessary trip on 99 and sit in traffic for 30 minutes.
Like it matters to anybody out on the Best coast.
The SF freeway I miss most was the old Central Artery – you could get halfway across town in a jiffy after coming across the Golden Gate Bridge from the north. Now, you crawl, crawl, crawl down Lombard….
Fun fact – despite the presence of a much-vaunted transit system, 71.5% of San Francisco households own cars. When I go there, I rent a car because getting across town – even using transit – is a giant PITA there unless you're going to/from a set of well-served destinations.
Seattle is already rapidly depopulating.
The fact that it's cold and grey here at the end of July, indicating yet another year with 8 months of no sunshine, coupled with very low prices for homes in CA, mean one thing — mass exodus.
I doubt if anyone but true natives could stand what the weather will be from now on…solid grey from August to March…
Get out of here with that BS John Bailo/The Bankruptcy/The Information.
” it seems it's prevalent based on studies.” What studies? Or are you just speaking anecdotally?
I'm talking about the WADOT numbers, which I doubt are just pulled out of the asses of various folks working for the department.
I assumed s/he meant “past downtown”
“In the late 1950s, a Chamber of Commerce committee proposed several expressways, including a Riverfront Expressway through the French Quarter and the Claiborne Expressway. Influential activists in the French Quarter were able to kill the riverfront plan.”
Seattle had a brain-dead plan like that too. Seattle Municipal Archives recently posted a 1959 Planning Commission plan to build a bypass freeway through the heart of Pioneer Square:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalar...
“In the late 1950s, a Chamber of Commerce committee proposed several expressways, including a Riverfront Expressway through the French Quarter and the Claiborne Expressway. Influential activists in the French Quarter were able to kill the riverfront plan.”
Seattle had a brain-dead plan like that too. Seattle Municipal Archives recently posted a 1959 Planning Commission plan to build a bypass freeway through the heart of Pioneer Square:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalar...
For those few uses that can't be replicated locally, you have to spend an extra 10 minutes driving. Hardly worth a few billion dollars to fix that.
I don't know that we have good data on where peak traffic goes, but I'm guessing most of that traffic is headed downtown. Good luck helping that with a downtown bypass.
“if we had the transportation infrastructure in place” What better time than now to build it? What better justification? If you really want transit, spending all of our money on car-based infrastructure is a terrible way of going about it.
(not knowing much about NOLA I'll leave your second paragraph alone. You did switch to talking about NOLA, right? Because the Embarcadero was along the waterfront)
“71.5% of San Francisco households own cars” You're claiming having a city with less than 100% car ownership right here in the car-loving USA is a failure? How many of these cars are used on a daily basis? What's the percentage in, say, Kent?
I lived in SF with a car (no bus service in the Precidio) and it sucked. Their public transportation system is by far the best way to get around.
Talk about same arguments over and over… Where is the Viaduct 4 lanes in each direction? The bottleneck is the cut&cover section, which is 2 lanes each way. You're not reducing capacity on the tunnel's route (which goes past the cut&cover section).
[Michael] You make logical and well reasoned points. If there were really just two options – the tunnel or the rebuild – I would probably be right with you. But you're giving up a fight we can win. The politics are almost identical to SF with the Embarcadero – the state wanted to rebuild, the mayor fought and fought and fought and they finally just tore the thing down. You're probably also working under the assumption that WSDOT can't fund transit. The fact is that the state can fund anything they want to. It's true that they're constitutionally bound to spend gas tax and car license money on roads, but they spend far more on roads than they take in from these sources. That leaves billions a year that can be spent on transit if we spend less on roads.
A minor point: “The DSA would fight hard against any additional taxes on parking” Check out the comments here.
Hells yes I switched mid thought. It's what I do.
And I agree that it is now time to really focus on building transportation infrastructure. But, I also understand the political reality, and how long that is going to take (look at Sound Transit).
To me, it's a matter of weaning (reduced capacity tunnel) vs. not weaning (expanded capacity replacement). I vote weaning.
4 lanes from Seneca to the stadiums, 3 from Seneca to Bell(ish).
The tunnel is 2 from start to finish.
@Matt:
You are totally one of my favorites on this topic.
And now you bring up the politics of it, which is my favorite part.
And the politics is really what it comes down to, and while the SF mayor fought and fought, I'm sure he was at least somewhat liked in Sacremento. We in Seattle are in the unfortunate position of having a mayor that…doesn't have that same relationship with Olympia, and who is following a mayor who didn't have a good relationship with Olympia.
The State should fund transit, but they have hostile legislators who believe that it should be roads, roads, roads. The pesky law that disallows the gas tax to go towards transit could be changed, but the political power is against such a move.
One thing that I find kind of funny is Vancouver, WA – long considered rather conservative – is fighting for not just a new bridge for I-5, but also a dedicated bridge for and including a light rail line to go into Portland from downtown. Van-effing-couver. Part of why they may get it, of course, is that they haven't built the same animosity that Seattle has.
But I'm off point. I agree we can get good infrastructure, I just don't see that there is the willingness to do what is necessary to make it happen. Too many people are in a bubble in Seattle. I regularly go outside of the city to various political functions, and will talk with folks about important issues to me and my district (ie: 520 and making the replacement transit friendly), and in many cases, they have never heard from people on this side of the water who would be affected, because so many spend so much time complaining on blogs, facebook, twitter, to their friends, to the mayor, or to their legislators, but don't make the effort to go to where the (quite frankly) soft opposition is.
(here's where I go way off topic) – I am proud that we have legislators in my district who are fighting for a better 520, a transit friendly 520. But they can't do it alone, and people who really care about these things can't rely on elected officials and David Hiller to get it done. It takes not only going out and personally doing the talking with the electeds, but also making the case to friends, family and organizations in those electeds districts. And, when they still don't listen, sometimes it takes finding someone to run against them, and aim for a better legislator.
And on that bit of pontificating, I will finish.
- So the section of New Orleans north of the Mississippi wouldn't have developed if not for freeways? Right.
- The populations has still dropped considerably, which has vastly reduced demand for the highway.
- And all this assumes the Claiborne plan will get off the ground, as we're talking about an interstate highway in their case. And if you think WA's being a hardass about a state highway (SR 99), just you wait and see what the US DOT thinks about a city's plan to rip out a portion of its interstate freeway system just to polish up its neighborhood.
1) What are you talking about? Of course the section North of the River would have developed without the Freeway. It did so…. over 200 years earlier! LOL
2) Yeah, and Seattle still has I-5, so unlike I-10 SR 99 isn't the only Freeway to the heart of the city (in NO's case the Quarter, Business District, and Garden District).
3) Why would they care? Through Traffic uses 610 anyway.
“Seattle is [...] rapidly depopulating.” This is objectively untrue. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Seattle's population to be over 617k as of July 2009, a 9.6 percent increase over the 2000 census count (563k). The 2008 estimate was 603k. Even in the recession, Seattle is growing. Source: Puget Sound Business Journal, 22 June 2010.
Correct. The part of the current AWV through downtown that needs extra capacity has it. Retrofit!