Then there is the fact that the Governor and DOT are not bit players here. They feel they have a right to a highway in that location, having already built one there, and that they represent the interests of the state citizens who paid with gas taxes for that highway.

Also realize this tunnel is far from a done deal. The EIS process isn’t finished, the engineering isn’t to the point where the cost estimates are believable, and the funding isn’t in place. All we have now is a bunch of best guesses and promises along with a joint press conference announcing “a decision has been made”.

That said, I do see the point of saying “lets move forward” now that we have the City, County, and State more or less on the same page finally.

I suspect cost overruns are what is going to kill this tunnel. I have no doubt that once the engineering is further along the cost estimates are going to balloon and the city is going to balk at covering them.

One of the real tragedies here is that a group of Seattle architects and engineers studied the I-5 proposals, and found it would be cheaper to build the road as a cut-and-cover with very little gradient. But you can’t tell the Washington State Department of Highways anything, and as a result, we have a freeway like a roller-coaster.

Sure rail equipment can do the sort of grades talked about for the deep bore tunnel, this doesn’t mean it is necessarily a good idea. Long haul passenger and freight trains don’t generally have every axle powered which is what gives trams, LRVs, etc fairly good hill climbing ablity.

Of course the problem with the deep-bore tunnel for short-haul interurban type service is the lack of stations in the downtown core. I suppose you could try to mine some in, but at that point I have to wonder if maybe you would have been better off just building a rail transit tunnel in the first place.

While it is more expensive than a simple cut and cover station, underpinning exsisting underground transit stations is done all of the time, especially in places like NY, London, or Paris. It is how those cities ended up with multi-level multi-line transfer stations at various locations.

A 5th Avenue alignment would be the able to serve the East side of the Seattle Center and the Gates Foundation Campus. While such a station doesn’t really serve SLU it is closer than any other station (though Westlake does have the advantage of a direct streetcar connection). Another idea would be a possiblity of connecting Ballard to West Seattle Link to the existing Link network between ID and Stadium stations. I don’t know if the track geometry would work out for a direct connection to East Link but a Connection to the tracks heading South would be fairly easy. You may even want to share the tracks along busway down to Lander for the West Seattle segment. It would also make it possible to have single seat rides from West Seattle to the U-District and points North and from Ballard to the Airport to points South, maybe Ballard to the Eastside as well if the track geometry works out. Operationally I’m not sure you’d want to do this other than for special occasions or emergencies

However, I’m guessing that the viaduct and I-5 through Seattle weren’t all that massive for their time, considering the vast amount of highway construction going on at the time. Drive I-90 across the country and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Certainly a highway through an urban area is way more difficult and costly than a rural freeway, but mile after mile – thousands of miles – of freeway boggles the mind, and makes me wonder what it would take for rail infrastructure to undergo what Eisenhower had in mind for interstate freeways.

How should we measure the size of projects? Complexity? Cost? Their economic effects after 50 years? Their mass? The mass of the soil they move?

Be careful what you wish for.

Secondly, if you just build out on the Hiway 99 ROW (entirely fitting, considering how much of 99 was built on interurban ROW), it doesn’t matter where the freight and passenger trains are- you create a new transportation corridor running through a lot of TOD-ready landscape.

Believe it, when gas gets up around $10-15/gallon (I’m guessing 10 years from now) you might be ready to convert 99 back to electric trains.

The tunnel after all is the equivalent of one month spent on Iraq so yes, in the grand scheme of things, it is a pin drop of expense.

ST needs to focus on opening the airport station sooner rather than later – a couple of trips on dilapidated old Pierce Transit shuttle buses from the airport to Tukwila should be enough to cure anyone of justifying a delay!

Secondly, the deep-bore tunnel will carry major amounts of trucks. This is quite obvious from even a brief viewing of the current traffic on the Viaduct. Not sure how those trucks will benefit from a bus tunnel.

Finally, if you say you want to spend the proposed First Avenue Streetcar funding on a bus tunnel, that really has nothing to do with a deep-bore tunnel. It’s just an expression of a preference for one transit alternative over another.

An American railroad is an institution shaped by 100 years of fighting off encroachment- by the public, by the government, by other railroads- and by 100 years of long-term investment in right-of-way. The BNSF may be nicer to deal with than the UP, but the line to Everett, and Stevens Pass, are probably the two most irreplaceable elements of the BNSF access to Chicago. Think of your body part you would least like a stranger to mess with- that’s how the BNSF feels about the ROW between Seattle and Everett.

There are more choices than elevated highway or tunnel.

My personal hope is the engineers red tag the thing before tunnel construction starts.