Exactly How Big an Idiot Stick Hit Judy Clibborn?

Tunnel Facts vs. Tunnel Fiction

In the last two days, two press releases about the tunnel hit the news. One, from Tayloe Washburn of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, alleged that stopping the deep-bore tunnel would have calamitous effects on the regional economy and would, perversely, cost the citizens of Seattle even more money in taxes. The other, from Mayor Nickels’ campaign, essentially said the same thing, adding that if the City were to back out of its agreement, the State would pull its $2.2 billion. Both claim that tunnel opponents are deceiving voters.

So that’s the tunnel fiction. Let us hit you with some Tunnel Facts.

Will the State Pull its Funding?

Senator Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island) has been in the press recently saying that the tunnel is a done deal regardless of what the Mayor of Seattle thinks. Sandeep Kaushik, the Mayor’s spokesperson, takes that statement one step further, suggesting that if the tunnel plan falls through, the State would not support allocating even one cent to an I-5/Surface/Transit alternative. “The State is not going to pay for it,” he says.

So, could the State take their $2.82 billion and go home in a huff? Legally, maybe they could. But to suggest that the State would abdicate all responsibility for SR 99 just because they didn’t get their preferred alternative is both absurd and insulting to the Governor and Legislators involved. To our knowledge none of the relevant State Legislators have made any such threat. The State will still have responsibility for maintaining a surface-level SR 99 on the waterfront, just like they have responsibility for SR 99 north of the ship canal, or like every other numbered State highway in Ephrata, Omak or Enumclaw, which doesn’t run through a deep-bore tunnel.

Will Seattle Have to Pay $930 Million, No Matter What?

Both Kaushik and Washburn go on to say that the City would still be required to spend that $930 million whether or not the tunnel plan goes through, because of the specific projects that make up the $930 million: seawall replacement, utility relocation, and surface street improvements. When Mayor Nickels, Executive Sims and Governor Gregoire hammered out their deep-bore tunnel plan, they allocated all the ancillary costs to the City and County, while the State took on the cost of the tunnel itself. It did this to provide tunnel proponents with this very argument. But while it's true that utility relocation, seawall replacement and surface street improvements all need to happen, the city need not shoulder the entire cost of each of those items. If the State were planning on renovating a waterfront highway in Bellingham or Vancouver, the State and Port would be shouldering a substantial portion of the cost of replacing the seawall and relocating utilities. Any attempt to say otherwise is a blatant attempt to intimidate voters.

Do We Need the Tunnel to Avoid Gridlock?

Regarding the I-5/Surface/Transit option, Washburn writes: “Department of Transportation studies show that I-5 would suffer gridlock for 10 to 14 hours a day.” Sadly, he does not provide a citation for those studies. The only studies we know of [pdf] say that we could improve I-5 through downtown to get rid of the bottleneck, and improve surface streets and mass transit along the waterfront, and in doing so end up with only a 5-10 minute increase in trips across town, and roughly no difference in trip times to downtown. Also, the empirical experiences of other cities show that removing raised urban highways nearly always reduces congestion as people combine or forgo non-critical trips. San Francisco, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Paris, Seoul and a host of other cities worldwide have all removed elevated freeways without experiencing the sort of traffic Armageddon predicted by Chicken Littles such as Mr. Washburn and Mayor Nickels.

Similarly, Mr. Washburn cites the “Hebert Economic Study” to support his prediction of economic calamity if the I-5/Surface/Transit option is pursued. But the Hebert study didn’t examine the I-5/Surface/Transit option; it only studied the loss of the viaduct with no mitigation whatsoever. Yes, if the viaduct were knocked down tomorrow by an earthquake, one would predict a substantial impact on commerce. But we’re not talking about knocking it down and replacing it with nothing. We’re talking about a solution that was engineered by WSDOT and SDOT, and recommended by the Stakeholders.

Is the Tunnel Better for Business?

Regarding the effects to business and industry: in the long run, a bypass freeway does nothing to help downtown business. Downtown businesses will be better served by the I-5/Surface/Transit option which seeks to keep downtown as the commercial core of the city, instead of encouraging consumers to bypass downtown on their way to Lynnwood and Southcenter. Second, very little of the freight coming out of the Port even uses SR 99. 90 percent of the traffic coming out of the Port either goes south on SR 99 or north on I-5-not along the waterfront. Traffic from the Ballard/Interbay industrial area does use the waterfront corridor, but there are other solutions to that problem. We can allow freight to use the bus lanes, or even put in freight-only lanes. There are plenty of good solutions to try before spending billions of dollars on a tunnel project.

Did the Stakeholders Recommend the Tunnel?

Washburn claims that the Stakeholders supported a deep-bore tunnel, but this is simply not true. The Stakeholder’s letter [pdf], which bears Mr. Washburn’s signature, specifically recommends that the State:

Move forward with an Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Plan that includes improvements to I-5, transit, surface streets and potential for construction of a deep-bore tunnel,” and goes on to suggest “A state-funded Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement should include review of an I-5/surface/ transit hybrid, including the proposed building block investments. Sufficient funds should also be included within the SEIS for design and necessary environmental review of construction of a bored tunnel with a commitment to bring it to a record of decision.

The Stakeholders’ Committee clearly recommended improvements to I-5, to transit and to surface streets. To suggest that the phrase “the potential for a deep-bore tunnel” translates to a near-unanimous recommendation for a deep-bore tunnel is another fabrication, especially given that the Stakeholders released their recommendations in December, and the Mayor and Governor released their decision a mere month later. If there were a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement over the Christmas holiday, we must have missed the press release.

Besides, the Tunnel Costs More Than They Admit

Finally, the Mayor and Mr. Washburn fail to mention the potential for cost overruns, despite a recent Oxford University study stating that over 90 percent of transportation mega-projects go substantially over budget. And neither the Mayor nor Mr. Washburn want to talk about how the tunnel project relies on the Mercer and Spokane projects to make the tunnel fit into the street grid [pdf], as WSDOT’s own website admits. That’s another $300 million. Nor do they want to talk about how, under the I-5/Surface/Transit plan, we will actually improve I-5 at a cost of $500 million, which everyone knows has to happen anyway. At our count, we’re looking at another $800 million of City and State money for projects that relate directly to, but are not included in, the tunnel plan. And that’s before cost overruns.

So we have to ask: Who’s deceiving whom?