Frank Chopp, Olympia's favorite stubborn uncle, decided many years ago that something should be done about the viaduct, and because he lives in Seattle he was able to wait seven years before actually announcing his plan. Wow, he must have absolutely no faith in the state's leadership. His proposal, a giant mall/freeway between downtown and the waterfront, would be bigger and bulkier than the current viaduct, but before you totally start to hate this idea,......

"Alaskan Way" by Slightly North, the official photographer of the Viaduct With the Ballard Denny's landmark status is-it-or-isn't-it debacle still fresh on our mind, comes the latest chapter in Seattle's ever-exciting "What Constitutes an Historic Landmark?" debate. According to local historian Art Skolnik, the death-trap we formally call the Alaskan Way Viaduct should be declared and preserved as an historic landmark. Skolnik contends that the viaduct should not only be preserved, but we should just......

What was that WSDOT? You stopped the sinking of the viaduct with your latest repairs? That is what you reported yesterday, right? And, we kinda called your bullshit—only to feel completely validated this morning by this headline: "Viaduct Sinks a Little Bit More." According to the story in the P-I, "Part of the Alaskan Way Viaduct settled one-eighth of an inch at Pioneer Square during recently completed repair work designed to stop the settling"......

"The Viaduct Under Construction,1951." We don't mean to play favorites, but this image is from the beloved Seattle Municipal Archives, which amazes us more with each image they share. Then again, isn't that what they always say? The Washington State Department of Transportation claims that the most recent repairs have stopped the so-called settling of the viaduct. (They call it settling because it sounds much nicer and considerably less alarming than "sinking.") It seems......

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is sketchy. So much so that it was featured in Popular Mechanics' special report "The 10 Pieces of U.S. Infrastructure We Must Fix Now." The Viaduct graces the list, which also includes Atlanta's failing water system, New Orleans' canal locks, Chicago's notorious O'Hare Airport, and the country's oldest suspension-bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge. From what we've seen, Popular Mechanics was very diplomatic and didn't use descriptions like "death trap" and "converts atheists......

Another gem of the Viaduct, courtesy of prolific Flickr Contributor Slightly North Though the Alaskan Way Viaduct continues to sink—or, as the engineers like to call it, "settle"—a section of the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been declared safe. Preliminary results from the semi-annual inspection that closed the viaduct last weekend show that a section of the bridge between Columbia and Yesler St. has settled an additional 3/8th of an inch. The settling is visible......

The aptly titled, "Empty Viaduct?" by Seattlest Flickr Contributor slightlynorth The Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed for its semi-annual inspection this weekend. The viaduct will be closed from 6am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday. The Battery Street Tunnel will be closed all weekend to traffic. The semi-annual inspections check for that settling Dan was talking about earlier this week and the cracks we all pretend aren't there when we speed down the viaduct, fearing......

One of the oldest jokes in the book is at the expense of the Sixth Amendment: how can twelve people who couldn't get out of jury duty be counted as your peers? Juries, after all, are populated by the unemployed and retirees--people who don't have to actually work for a living. But alas, should you find yourself accused of knocking over a liquor store, defrauding a bank, or killing your significant other, retirees and the......

Glory be! Is this the year all our wishes come true? It wasn't but yesterday that we asked whether a decision would be made on the Viaduct this year. Well, Chris McGann of the P-I asked Governor Christine Gregoire about it. And look!"It's coming down in 2012. I'm taking it down. That's the timeline. I'm not going to fudge on it. And if we don't have some alternative by then, boy are we going to......

Via Slog, here's the video of the Minneapolis 35W bridge collapse. Looks like it just went WHUMP. No warning. Of course you immediately think of the Viaduct, but the 35W bridge is a steel truss bridge, just like the I-5 Ship Canal bridge. And the Ship Canal bridge is six years older (it was finished in 1961, 35W in 1967). The Alaskan Way Viaduct, made of reinforced concrete bridge, opened in 1953. We don't know......

It's hard to believe that you were born 54 years ago today, Alaskan Way Viaduct. You don't look a day over 50. Sure, your reinforced concrete could use some work. We all need a little health maintenance as we get older. Viaduct, we admire the way you embrace your age. So stoic. You don't celebrate it; getting old is, in many ways, a pain. And you don't complain about it or submerge yourself in......

Recently Governor Gregoire's been taking a lot of heat for her ambivalent handling of the Viaduct sitchyation we got here. Today, the Seattle Times rides to her rescue. The blame-reallocating story by David Postman and Andrew Garber begins: Gov. Christine Gregoire got so frustrated trying to broker a compromise between Mayor Greg Nickels and House Speaker Frank Chopp on the Alaskan Way Viaduct that she turned to a Republican wise man for advice. "She......

The latest chapter in the drama (using the term loosely) around WSDOT's updates of the Alaskan Way Viaduct article on Wikipedia. Wiki administrator Crzrussion posted on the article's talk page this explanation from Amy Grotefendt at WSDOT : No offense was intended in providing updates to the Wikipedia page, and we want to abide by the expectations and guidelines involving the Wikipedia community. The Wikipedia page was updated on October 27, 2006, to correct inaccuracies......

If the Wikipedia user WSDOT Alaskan Way Viaduct Project wants to spin any more entries they're going to have to identify themselves to the powers that be at the site. As noted in the comments of our post on Friday and at Wikipedia's discussion page for the Alaskan Way entry, WSDOT Alaskan Way Viaduct Project has been banned.......

Have you read Wikipedia's article on the Alaskan Way Viaduct lately? Here are the two most recent versions of the opening paragraph. The first is from September 21, last revised by Bibliophylax: The Alaskan Way Viaduct is an elevated section of Washington State Route 99 that runs along the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle's Industrial District and downtown Seattle. It is the smaller of the two major traffic corridors through Seattle, carrying up to 110,000......

The Viaduct is closing this weekend for a semi-annual inspection, which we like to imagine as Mayor Nickels walking up to and attempting to shake a support column. Thumbs-up, DOT, looks like we're set for another year or until such time as a replacement tunnel is funded! While the official inspecting is going on, there is an opportunity for some private citizen-types to get a close-up look at the Viaduct decks. The Alaskan Way......

Dear pansy-ass liberals at KUOW--stop the relativism. Just as there's a difference between Gitmo and My Lai, there's a difference between East and West Marginal Way. This morning, the KUOW traffic reporter advised listeners that "Marginal Way is closed." OK--but there are TWO Marginal Ways. There's West Marginal Way, which connects West Seattle to Burien, and is consequently used by no one, and East Marginal Way, which connects the Alaskan Way Viaduct to the......

Someday the Viaduct is going to collapse and kill a bunch of not-so-unsuspecting Seattleites and maybe a few guys from Everett. Only the elevated highway nymphs and the guy deep in the earth who pulls the earthquake levers knows when, exactly, that will be, but we have a pretty good idea that it will happen "someday." So we busy ourselves fixing it, or, failing that, arguing about how to fix it. So far we've got......

NEW is history, say the policy pundits at Cascadia Scorecard. Call us the Sightline Institute instead. (Someone's been busy in the art department turning wonky into wowzers! Ha ha! No, seriously, the site looks hot.) We mention them because of this recent, wonktacular post -- in which they spend a good deal of time talking about Alaskan Way Viaduct-less traffic -- and argue, "Why spend billions of dollars to fix a problem that that city's......

Magnolia is getting a new bridge, if the city can get some money to pay for it. Damaged in the 2001 Nisqually Quake, the current Magnolia Bridge is in a race with the Alaskan Way Viaduct to fall over. While it will probably take decades for something to be done about the Viaduct, the city will move ahead with the Magnolia project in 2009. Two options were proposed: rebuild the bridge in its current location,......

At 2:30 p.m. today, March 13th, the Seattle City Council is holding a hearing with members of the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Seattle Department of Transportation concerning the controversial Alaskan Way Viaduct program. Grace Crunican and Bob Chandler of SDOT and Ron Paananen of WashDOT are expected to be questioned by council members about funding issues with regard to Team Nickels' increasingly questionable replacement choice for the earthquake damaged waterfront highway. The......

Earlier in the week it looked as if Mayor Nickels' plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel had run out of time. Olympia lawmakers wanted him to present a funding package by April 1, an almost impossible task given the project's 3 to 4 billion dollar cost. Yesterday, the state House approved a plan that would give Governor Christine Gregoire until January 1 to decide the future of the viaduct. The plan......

Seattlest has let a day or two go by without yammering on about the Viaduct, and we're sorry. Luckily, there's new doings in the bass-ackwards transportation saga, reported in the Seattle Times: a bridge concept. Actually, Seattlest already came up with this idea months and months ago, after consuming a bottle of a "quaffable" Cotes du Rhone one evening and being thus reminded of the bridge they built over there that looks so appealing.......

Republicans, they are a lot like us, except wealthier with a better knowledge of Big and Rich lyrics. They also have little say in the Seattle political spectrum-- except that there are enough GOPers in the city to tilt a close election, if they bother to pick which lilly liberal Dem they want to go with. The point is not much attention is paid to Republicans in Seattle . However, there are two races......

Initiatives, they are the voice of the people-- which is a really sad thought. Sure, Tim Eyman may have ruined everything in this state with his grand plan to fix local government and buy as much stuff as possible using his supporters' money; however, he is not behind the latest effort to get tax reform on the ballot. Initiative 912 would repeal the 9 cent per gallon tax passed by the state legislature. The money......

There's no doubt that between the viaduct and the 520 bridge the sexier demolition project is the viaduct. It's ugly, dangerous, noisy, hateful, holds grudges, is jealous of our success and a whole lot of other bad stuff. We want it disassembled and buried deep inside the earth; replaced with something shinier and happier like a park or condos or a dozen new cruise ship terminals. The 520 we can live with. Who would......

Seattlest's head just exploded. We've been covering the undecided fate of the waterfront trolley for a couple of weeks now, but today's front-page article in the P-I sealed it: everyone's crazy, no one talks to each other, and you might as well just buy a Lionel train set if you're into trolleys. Apparently, despite reassurances that moving the trolley barn north into Port of Seattle-owned land and laying tracks through Myrtle Edwards Park would......

As has been noted before at Seattlest, Flickr is a super cool way to share pictures, especially all those worthless, low resolution cameraphone pictures. In fact, Flickr allows instant email posting of pictures right from your cameraphone. So today we mine the servers at Flickr for images of our great city as seen through the cheap, scratched plastic lenses of your cameraphone (or phonecam). The camera phone captures the simple realities of daily experience,......