The new tunnel is a downtown bypass route. The viaduct had a couple downtown exits, but the tunnel starts by the stadiums South of downtown, and ends by South Lake Union, with no downtown exits. All of the into-downtown traffic will be pushed to surface streets. Tunnel tolling will kick in soon too. The viaduct had no tolling.

The city is pushing a one-time tax bill called a "local improvement district" to property owners in downtown for the benefit of better views and higher property values once the viaduct is gone. There is speculation of pulling a second LID for improvements in the area of Key Arena to coindide with the new NHL team http://mynorthwest.com/1242618/dori-rob-johnson-seattle-nhl/

The tunnel may be necessary but it's not all rosy as the WaPo article makes it out to be.

Not to mention the massive cost, the overruns to said cost, the construction delays...

Worth it for Boston, sure. But the rest of the U.S. paid almost all of the massive cost.

Massachusetts paid for many of it's own interstates before sick a system existed. You could see that in the old Central Artery being way out of compliance with standards. A compelling argument was that other states had their modern highways paid for them by the Federal government long ago while Massachusetts had done it themselves even before then.

I was referring specifically to the Big Dig, as was the parent comment.

Yes. Other states had their highways paid by the Federal government. Massachusetts had originally paid for its highways itself. The balance came due with the Big Dig, cost adjusted for 2000.

A frustration I have with Seattle local politics is the property taxes. The increase land value from tearing down the viaduct already results in higher assessed values that get paid by the property owners perpetually. Throwing in $100+ million "local improvement district" special assessments is a money grab, or as some have called it a "wealth transfer."

It's like saying everyone within a radius of a new light rail station or interstate on-ramp has to pay a one-time assessment, instead of infrastructure projects being for the common good.

The local improvement districts smell like corporate socialism, and selective taxation. More money for government to spend, more money for developers to receive, and the public don't care because it only affects rich people with waterfront views. Until the next "local improvement district" affects their neighborhood. It's a recipe for corruption and a slippery slope.

There was an 8k run today along the new tunnel and the soon-to-be-destroyed Viaduct. Aside from being insanely packed, it was a really cool experience getting to see the Viaduct one last time on foot and getting to see the tunnel while it's still shiny and new.

This morning was a bike ride that did the same. It was completely awesome. 12,000 bikes tearing through it. One of the best organized rides I've done.

“Celebrated replacement”? I mean, I just walked through the new tunnel for it’s public opening as a curiosity, but I’m not sure it’s celebrated per se.

Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted to see the viaduct go, but I’m not sure the replacement is needed, or really a replacement. I also think that they’re essentially building a surface level highway along the waterfront, which to me diminishes what could have been a truly world-class waterfront.

Alaskan Way was a busy 4 lane road prior to the seawall replacement project and SR-99 construction, the two addes lanes are dedicated for busses.

Really wish we had kept rail along this alignment (rather than letting Seattle Art Museum destroy the waterfront trolley), but short of that we are stuck with making busses fast and reliable.

Wrt cutting this down to 1 lane in either direction for regular cars, in the context of the ferry queues clogging Alaskan Way currently, narrowing the road would create a waterfront parking lot between ferries.

Running the park down the middle of the road would be enjoyable, Portland has a few nice parks of that style

Portland also entirely replaced our waterfront highway with an enormous park, probably not the precedent you're looking for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Drive

Out of curiosity, why is this not a good precedent? Were the results bad, or because it's Portland?

This freeway removal project was generally considered a success, I know I rather enjoyed the benefits of the new waterfront park in Portland when I was younger. Lots of good memories!

Not a good precedent as far as "We can't remove this road entirely". Road entirely removed, everyone was happy.

What I've seen on my commute (ferry terminal to South Lake Union) is that with the viaduct closed, there were much fewer trips (the ferries were very empty), but a lot more congestion on surface streets.

It's always hard to say what's needed, but I suspect the tunnel will be well used.

Seattle's waterfront is a bit different from Boston's but the Big Dig which was a much more complicated predecessor of this project was well worth it. I have been very critical of the Rose Kennedy Greenway for a variety of reasons but it is so much better than the hulking monster that was the Central Artery.

I'm really glad to see some cities still invest in unified, balanced public transportation infrastructure like this. Seattle is a great example of what all cities should be striving for.

Leave Seattle at 1pm. It takes 5-10 minutes to get to 90/I5. Leave at 5pm, it takes an hour.

It is definitely a great example, but no one should strive to emulate it.

No kidding. Seattle should be an example of how not to plan a city. Traffic is astonishingly bad given the population.

The Seattle metro is a unique situation that exists outside of just city planning...we are trapped between various lakes, mountains ranges, and massive bodies of saltwater - and I don't say this in the regions defense - I have suffered an insane commute here before choosing to make the sacrifices necessary to live and afford to live in the city. At the same time the things that make commuting in this place difficult are what make it precious.

Hopefully ST3 comes to fruition as there simply aren't many more places to put highways.

Adding highways isn't the only tool available to transportation planners. Isn't it interesting how some intersections bog down at any capacity, while others are busy and still keep moving smoothly?

There are types of lane and intersection designs which never seem to work well, and I'm surprised that more isn't done to avoid or eliminate them.

This is true, the geography does create some traffic funnels.

Did they really plan it? I feel like no one expected Amazon to grow as much as they did. And the domino effect was everyone else started coming into the area because tech talent was here already (or across the lake in Bellevue and Redmond). I’m not a Seattle native so do correct me if that’s wrong.

the tunnel was always sort of dumb, but seattle had a really reasonable traffic growth plan for its expected growth. the actual growth has been way higher than the plan.

Seattle will always be congested due to sheer geography. It’s surrounded by water on all sides. Want to go east? You have two bridges, and neither one is particularly better for the suburbs of Bellevue and Co., since that area lies between 520 and I90. To get to West Seattle you have one bridge, or take the 2x as long drive down and around. Living out West puts you on the ferry schedule.

Seattle’s congestion is kind a crap-chute because every downtown/SLU employee is basically choked through a bridge in one way or another.

Edit: and no one wants to live south. For whatever reason. And even if you commuted south, seems like it’s about a 50% chance a semi is going to be crashed on that weird median.

Lots of people live to the south. Land in South Seattle has significant pollution problems though.

It is. The entire region is a giant landslide hazard, which makes it extremely time-consuming to build things, including the ends of bridges.

I think what was missed during this viadoom was that SR-99 allowed many employers to demand people needlessly commute to an office, when most of the former daily users could work from home or at a closer location.

The Wednesday after the Viaduct closed, I dropped by a few office buildings, and business after business was operating with only a handful of the usual staff on site. Most of those office employees are only on site daily due to poor management IMO.

You should read more about the shitshow that was Bertha and the Seattle tunnel. Lot of lawsuits and complete stupidity went into this project.

Biggest tunnel boring machine ever and we end up with a tunnel that has the same number of traffic lanes as the old. Progress!

It does have improvements such as a small provision for emergency vehicles to squeeze by or pulling a disabled vehicle out of the way, and hopefully it is resilient to quakes. Still... Lot of expense for the same 4 lanes.

I don't know enough about this particular project to say much, but if you Google there are plenty of traffic studies showing that more lanes generally makes traffic worse, not better.