Access, freight hot topics at tunnel town hall

Posted by Geeky Swedes on March 23rd, 2009

A good crowd attended the tunnel town hall at Ballard High School tonight.

Representatives from WSDOT, SDOT and other agencies took questions from the crowd about plans to replace the Viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel.

Some in the audience, as you might imagine, were not in favor of the tunnel. Hot topics included access to Ballard, freight transportation routes and how we’re going to pay for it all. Organizers provided a number of maps, including how Northwest neighborhoods will access the tunnel (map), how we’ll drive to downtown (map) and how truckers will drive to and from Ballard (map). Travel times will only increase by a few minutes, SDOT’s Bob Powers said.

To give you an idea of the complexity of the project, one person in the audience questioned the panel on whether her trucks would be able to make the 90-degree turns to access the tunnel. Another asked about the signal timing and pedestrian walkways along Alaskan Way, because “trucks are different than cars” in their ability to start and stop quickly. Officials insisted many of the details are not yet set in stone, and more community meetings will be held in the weeks to come.

Plus: See more on the meeting from SeattlePI.com

Tags: Ballard Facebook

Captain Sleestak

We here at Dayglo Orange Dunebuggy Operations welcome a Hot Topic into Ballard with our blessings.

10-4

fuzzbeans

To describe the Deep Bore Tunnel as the "Big Dig" is obfuscatory: Boston's project was very complex and a cut & cover tunnel, NOT a bore tunnel.

The Sound Transit Beacon Hill Tunnel is a great example of a successful bore tunnel project. That's the right one to look at.

Mondo

nw - at the "open house" a while back at Adams School, I think the idea was to make it 2 lanes one way and 1 the other way. I talked with the (S/W?)DOT person at the poster there about that bottleneck, but they didn't seem worried about it. I wasn't convinced, as it seems that all the Mercer/tunnel north portal plans are still quite soft.

nwcitizen

Was there any discussion about whether they plan to widen the Mercer St incline up from Elliott? Right now it is one lane each way which would make that alternative route a real bottleneck.

SPG

The nice thing about this tunnel plan is that the Viaduct will stay in place until the tunnel is ready, rather than have to tear it down now and have no viable route until the replacement is finished.
I'm still very concerned about how two lanes are going to handle peak traffic and what all this traffic is going to do once it gets out of the tunnel. I'm envisioning a serious backup for any stadium event if they're not careful in designing the south exit.

chopper_74

thanks spg, I wish that I could have been there, but I value your perception. yes lots a $$$, hopefully, it doesn't interfere with transportation, because, it's still really important. unless you by cabbage from a bicycle....

SPG

The truckers were well represented last night and vocal. I think the point the lady trucker was making is that a semi can't turn from a small sidestreet onto 99 safely when there is any traffic flow.

The impression that I got from the presentation is that they don't have a lot of the details sorted out yet and that they want to hear what people's concerns are. That, and they are putting a lot of faith in traffic modeling software which really scares me. I wanted to ask if any of the panelists are regular commuters on 99, but didn't have the chance to ask.
I did come away liking the tunnel more than when I went in, but it sure is a lot of money being spent on this thing.

wherehavealltheflowersgone

"whether her trucks would be able to make the 90-degree turns to access the tunnel".

...What?? Like making 90-degree turns on a street that accesses a tunnel is somehow different than a 90-degree turn that doesn't access a tunnel??