Talking 520 and Climate With The Mayor

A little bit off topic, but the US military (hardly the most liberal group) just released a report predicting that peak oil will start in 2012 and we'll see a 10 million barrel oil shortage by 2015. So before we're done building the bridge it will be obsolete.

let's start with the need for a new bridge. if the bridge falls apart in a storm, we have warning. if it falls apart in an earthquake, excuse me, but how does spending billions on hardening this one asset improve our overall earthquake readiness when countless other bridges, roads, buildings and places will turn into rubble? And seriously, in an earthquake people on the bridge would have a fighting change if they had a life jacket in their car. The powers that be just use the earthquake risk to scare us into building things. Finally, why build another disposable floating bridge with a useful life of just 75 years ? tops? Bridges and tunnels that are permanent bring payback benefits for centuries. Isn't building disposable bridges simply an environmental waste in the first place?

now look at it from a pure mobility point of view. is it worth the $5 billion to get just two lanes more? seems like all road projects today are too darn expensive. How much mobility woudl we get if we put an elevated skytrain around the north end of lake washington and around to kirkland and bellevue? Run it right over the burke gilman trail then through kirkland and down bellevue way to hit the light rail in bellevue.

THAT would be cool. THAT would be change. in the meantime, just let the existing bridge ….. sit there. It's wasteful to take it down before nature does the job. Once the engineers say it's getting even more unsafe, we ban cars on it and only allow a few buses, bikes and divers off the side and we use it for parties and BBQ all summer long.

Dan,

Are those 5 ideas at the end your ideas or the Mayor's? It's not clear from the post.

Let's be clear; the proposed bridge option (A+) is in fact sixty feet wider (60' WIDER) than that which exists today. By adding 'just ten feet', the resulting bridge configuration would become SEVENTY FEET WIDER than the existing width.

This over environmentally sensitive wetlands and parklands on all sides.

Writing that McGinn might be willing to add an 'additional ten feet' is misleading to those who are not knowledgeable that the existing width of this bridge is only sixty feet.

Simple math: over TWICE AS WIDE as the existing bridge imposes massive impacts too many and egregious to list.

Dan Bertolet: “Why are we incapable of even considering radical, transformational solutions for the 520 bridge?”

Ah, this could just as well be Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich asking, “Why are we incapable of even considering radical, transformational solutions for our health care system?”

Well, let me answer these questions with a question of my own, “Why are we so consumed with considering radical transformational solutions that we fail to produce any tangible results?”

Provided that buses coming from 520 can continue on transit or HOV lanes to Husky Stadium station, the 520 bridge replacement has the potential to be an enormous–dare I say, transformational–improvement over what's there now. The combination of tolling and adding an HOV lane (or better yet, transit-only lane) each way just completely changes the dynamic of how commuters get across that bridge. Crossing 520 now is a Hobbesian, “every man for himself,” “tragedy of the commons” hell. Giving bus riders the advantage starts to create a virtuous cycle for all commuters instead of the current vicious cycle.

The changes we can make to the current A+ plan to make it (let me use that word again) transformational are hardly radical. And yet, aside from the wonks at a place like Seattle Transit Blog, you would think the only environmentally conscious thing to do is to scrap the whole thing and start over again.

thepeoplehavespoken: “Let's be clear; the proposed bridge option (A+) is in fact sixty feet wider (60' WIDER) than that which exists today. … This over environmentally sensitive wetlands and parklands on all sides.”

Yes, and with those 60 extra feet, we get emergency shoulders and HOV lanes. Not all attempts to widen freeways are evil. It depends on what you do with that extra width.

Oh, and last I checked, that environmentally sensitive area you refer to is part of an urban area. Unless you're willing to trade in your nice job and weekend trips to the mountains on your Subaru Outlook for a monastic existence, quit playing the rest of us about how we humans are supposed to have zero impact on our surroundings.

The evolving option K/L/M is the best place to start for rail conversion, now or in the future. Lots of details to work out though. The sad fact is we've spent 220 million in planning and design money and haven't done a full and fair analysis of this low impact alternative.

Though 'they' claim to have the best bridge design with option A+ it is clear that there are planned cost overruns in the not yet finished goals and the only reason for opposing the neighborhood plan is political.

Perhaps the saddest fact is that at this level of design McGinn and the smart folks living in Montlake appear to be much more competent than the people we are paying – whose best talent seems to be in insulting constructive engagement.

If the grand transformational idea is adding two transit lanes, then why do you need 6 lanes? Make it two transit and two general purpose lanes – then watch the number of people that start taking the bus.

I'd add that 16 of those additional feet account for the new regional bike/ped mixed use trail and the barrier that separates it from traffic.

“…it is blindingly obvious to any informed, rational observer that we must stop trying to achieve our transportation goals by throwing more pavement at the problem.”

The “everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot” school of writing. Awesome.

Matt_the_Engineer: If the grand transformational idea is adding two transit lanes, then why do you need 6 lanes? Make it two transit and two general purpose lanes – then watch the number of people that start taking the bus.

Actually, you don't need six lanes. Four would do too. But by the same token, you don't need four lanes either to transform that corridor. What you need are dedicated transit lanes (or at least HOV lanes) plus tolling–without expanding the single-occupant vehicle capacity.

I could be wrong about what's allowed under state law, but 520 has the potential to be the first highway in the Seattle area (not counting Tacoma Narrows Bridge here) that is tolled on an indefinite basis not just to pay for the project but as a means of congestion control–and not just HOT lanes but all lanes.

The biggest problem with the 520 brdige designs wasn't even mentioned. It is that the current 6 lane design is based on the assumption that future growth will be like past growth: This is the cover used by the politicians. They say we'll have either gridlock or we'll stall our economic growth without this, so the business community is solidly behind them.
The problem is that Peak Oil means that this growth won't happen. We need to talk a lot more about Peak Oil, both to wake people up to the hard realities ahead and to stop boondoggles like the 6 lanes 520.

however many lanes it has, toll the sucker dynamically so that it flows at 45 mph. also, toll I-5, I-90, I-405, SR-509, and SR-99 in the same manner.

” trade in your nice job and weekend trips to the mountains on your Subaru Outlook for a monastic existence, quit playing the rest of us about how we humans are supposed to have zero impact on our surroundings”

hmmm . . . you must have me mistaken for somebody else!
No Subee, no trips to mountains . . . no 'nice' job, unless you are referring to empty desks in my own office, where work used to be. Happy riding my bike and walking around town. Guilty for an occasional three hour trip (3 -4 times a year) up or down I-5. Yes, want to preserve the nature around me, so we can all breathe and watch birds flying around for as many more years as possible! cheers!

Fiber, telecommuting, electric cars, Bus Rapid Transit.

You are going to need tolls if people are not paying gas taxes because they are not consuming gas.

I think a tire tax should also be imposed, on bikes too.

Electric cars, they are called electric cars, strawman.

Electric cars are no solution. They will too expensive. Peak Oil won't mean just much higher gas prices. It will mean much higher costs all through the global industrial system – extraction, processing, transportation of materials and parts. This also pushes up the costs of most kinds of natural resources. One results will be less overall wealth, which will translate to fewer well paid jobs (though a radical redistribution of income could temporarily postpone this).

The five ideas are mine, not the Mayor's. Sorry for the ambiguity.

I like the idea of a blanket transportation tax. Yes, I'll happily add a nickel onto the price of my Keds if it helps to keep projects moving.

As long as you're predicting the future, how do you like the M's this year? My heart says they win the West, but my brain says a disappointing third.

Or is your clairvoyance limited to post-industrial gloom and doom?

There are serious issues with converting every car to an electric. Starting with the most obvious one: cost. Unless we find a magical battery technology that allows us to build an electric car that can drive 200+ miles for the same price as an internal combustion engine, we'll see a large drop in car use from price alone.

(psst… did you see my link in the first comment – the US military agrees with dbh. though I'm not sure of their view on the mariners)

Even if everybody shifted to all electric cars tomorrow, expanding a highway in an urban area makes little sense from a land use and cost-efficiency standpoint. You'll still have congestion even if your cars run on fairy dust…

Dan– your assertion that “it’s the floating part that’s the safety risk” is absolutely incorrect. The Portage Bay viaduct that extends to from I-5 to the floating was constructed with hollow columns that could fail in a major earthquake.

WSDOT: “The west approach of the floating bridge and connecting Portage Bay and Union Bay bridges of SR 520 are supported by hollow columns. During a major earthquake, the hollow columns could implode and collapse. Engineers designed the SR 520 bridge and its approaches during the 1960s, before modern earthquake design standards existed.”

Source: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR520Bridge/vu…
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiuDUgvZpY

A new kind of car does not solve the car problem.

The real problem is not actually the oil in the car. The root of the issue is that we feel like we need to use huge amounts of energy to move huge chunks of metal, glass, and plastic with one tiny person inside.

Electricity or oil, this is a huge waste of precious energy. Not to mention space!

I guess “huge” was my word today.

We are not going to find enough oil to fuel our society at current rates of consumption. We are absolutely not going to find enough oil to fuel our current rate of increase of consumption.

This is a fact. What are your possible predictions based on these facts?

Just because you want there to be infinite oil does not mean that it is there.

I agree, but it would save a huge amount of money to just replace the floating part and these sections (or even just fill in the hollow columns) instead of building a new, wider freeway.

Once again, the “insiders” phrase the question so that no matter what, some big budget busting project will be foisted on the public.

“Let's build a bridge!”

“No, let's build a REALLY BIG bridge!”

“Oh, you guys are crazy…let's build a super bridge, half-transit, half-cars, and hold the mayo…no, put the mayo in…5000 gallons worth.”

So, while the blogpress intones about “debate” — there is no debate because not all option are on the table. And anyone who proposes something really breakthough, is told they are “not practical”.

So what kind of debate is that? A real debate would include ideas (ideas which were actually touted by politicians who are now elected back when they were candidates) such as completely remove the 520 bridge, or do away with the Viaduct.

If you can't consider these ideas, and they are all down shouted by the “ins” then there is no debate. Shut up and drink your Starbucks.

also pine grove, the environmentally sensitive area “the arboretum” is a urban park but is not an urban place. Only a few people live or work there. It holds a native burial ground and is home to a huge number of plants and animals that many find valuable to the city. We humans are not even close to zero impact but it would be nice if we were thoughtful with our intervention

Dan, this post is giving me blue balls, can you please bring a voice recorder next time? After reading your post I have no idea what the mayor said, or what you asked him.