Viaduct Elegy, Chapter 4: A disaster waiting to happen
Finally, finally, finally they are tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a colossal, monumentally-ugly, seismically-catastrophic piece of transportation “infrastructure” that has been a scar on the face of Seattle for the better part of a friggin’ century.
Yesterday I walked with an old friend at sunset, breaking the law.
Here is Chapter One, “Walking With Blaine”.
Chapter Two: ” the New Colossus ” click here.
Here’s Chapter Three, “Streamlined Brutale”.
A disaster waiting to happen
. . . One day in The Bay, a land of saints, the Earth began shaking.
The Loma Prieta quake of 1989 destroyed the Cypress Street Viaduct and killed 42 people. The same people that designed and built Cypress Street Viaduct were also responsible for the Embarcadero Freeway and The Alaskan Way Viaduct.
San Francisco looked across The Bay and saw the charred rubble of the Cypress Street Viaduct that was once in Oakland. They said “Right.” They did. The San Francisco Viaduct, as it was known in the city, was removed completely within eleven months. The Embarcadero, a broad, bright and sunny concourse of streets, took its place.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle was an elevated freeway that supported State Route 99. The double-decked freeway ran between the West Seattle Freeway (in SoDo) and Battery Street Tunnel (in Belltown), for 2.2 miles along Seattle’s waterfront, between Alaskan Way, Elliott Bay and the West Seattle Freeway. The construction was done in three phases between 1949 and 1959. The first section opened on April 4, 1953. Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives.
Ring of Fire
Here we are, thirty years after the Alaskan Way Viaduct was built, still standing in Seattle. Seattle, is still a backwater run by greedy rubes. San Francisco recognized an immediate danger to its residents and dealt with it in less than a month. Seattle faced the exact same problem, but it took three decades for them to find a solution.
Seattle was worse. Did I mention that The Viaduct was built on top of a landfill? It’s true, I didn’t say it. Seattle’s Pioneer Square, the old downtown area, is a pile of rubble that has been raised 15 feet above its original level. A drainage and sewer issue sparked a tale of greed, stupidity, ineptitude and poor planning. Seattle built a road that was seismically unstable and knew it would be an earthquake disaster. But they kept the road in operation for 30 years.
Seattle is located right in the middle of the Pacific Rim of Fire’s third-worst earthquake zone. Tokyo and its home islands in Japan are number one. Los Angeles and San Francisco tie for second place (although one could argue that SF is even worse since it’s directly on top the San Andreas fault). Seattle and Puget Sound are next. This is only surprising to some (even Seattle’s citizens and city planners) because quakes are not that common. This is actually worse from a seismic standpoint.
Seattle’s downtown waterfront and Pioneer Square, in particular, are particularly affected.
The Day After Tomorrow
The west coast’s largest city will be completely wiped off the map when the next big earthquake hits. We haven’t had a major in over two decades. Flattened. There’s no debate about it. Pioneer Square is a collection of mostly brick and masonry buildings that are perched up to 15 feet above ground level. The entire waterfront from the Port of Seattle up to Battery Street is landfill. The big one is coming. The ground will liquefy. The waterfront will fall ten or more feet like a vacuum. The seawall will crumble and Puget Sound is going to pour in. Pioneer Square will return to its original street-level almost instantly.
The brick walls will fall down at that time.
The entire process will only take a few seconds and, in effect, will level 30 city blocks.
It’s bad. Seattle could be unable to function as a city for over a year. Maybe even longer.
Seattle believes that it has solved the problem of The Viaduct. While both Oakland and San Francisco solved their problems in a matter of months, Seattle came up with a solution after careful consideration, much study and much thought.
That’s right.
Seattle Squeeze
Seattle, taking inspiration from Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ (no seriously), thought that the best way of removing The Viaduct while maintaining a north/south road was to bore a Tunnel through a landfill. San Francisco built a wide, open, sun-drenched Embarcadero in a matter of a year that accommodates walkers, cyclists, cars, trucks, and light rail. Seattle, on the other hand, decided to build a tunnel with fourlanes. Four.
The secondary north/south routes in one of the busiest cities in the country.
It will also be a road with a toll! You will be charged to drive on this new tunnel road. The kicker is that they say “this will not adversely impact surface traffic.” Seattle will charge you for dropping the lanes to four after thirty year of fumbling around. Then, they will say that traffic will improve in the region.
Imagine your boss saying, “We are cutting your salary and charging you for cashing your paycheck right now. But don’t be worried!” It will actually be better for me!”
Ivory Towers
As I walked along the crumbling road one sunny January day, I thought about all this: the design, building, maintenance, modifications, slow death of road, ugliness and rampant greed, stupidity. I looked up from the pothole, which was the size of a bathroom, and saw a group of people watching us on their balcony in the multi-million dollar condo of an ugly new building.
Blaine laughed and pointed upward.
He laughed the same rueful laughter that all Seattleites laugh since the second colonizer boat arrived.