Viaduct Debate Enters 2010 at Brisk Pace

Every time I'm downtown near the Viaduct, I try to take a picture because there will be a Viaduct post coming up soon enough that needs illustration. This is a can't-lose proposition. Ever since 2001, in the aftermath of the Nisqually quake, the Viaduct's fate has provided more or less daily fodder for journalists.

It's touching to see the naivete on display, June 28, 2001, when engineers officially declared the Viaduct unsafe to let stand: The "risk is greater than acceptable--we have to act now," Transportation Department spokeswoman Linda Mullen was quoted as saying in the Seattle Times.

The estimate for replacement was pegged at $530 million. "That's a big chunk of money," said then chair of the House Transportation Committee, Ruth Fisher.

Money, nine years later, is still top-of-mind among House members. The Seattlepi.com quotes House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler: "I've heard that a vote that I took to say that Seattle would pick up all the cost overruns, that we didn't mean that. I was stunned."

Apparently Kessler needs to talk more often with Rep. Judy Clibborn, today's chair of the House Transportation Committee, who went on the radio pre-election to say that the cost overrun requirement wasn't a legal amendment, that "It was a way to get three more votes and to get the tunnel bill passed."

Over on Crosscut, the indefatigable Cary Moon discusses the "giant underground question mark" that is the deep-bore tunnel proposal. One interesting point, for people worried about SR 99's "vital corridor" status: 85 percent of Viaduct traffic starts and ends within the city limits.

"About a month ago," Moon also writes, "WSDOT determined the engineering and structural risks from boring under Pioneer Square and First Avenue were hopeless, or at least too expensive to mitigate." Now the route veers along the waterfront there. Hugeasscity has pictures of what's lying in wait below the surface there.

Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy year.