In my post Saturday on project management challenges at WSDOT, I included a photo with a caption suggesting the coffer cell was not supposed to fall over as depicted. Although it was an attempt at levity, the coffer cell was indeed intended to fall over. You can find more information on the coffer cell here.
I have corrected the original post and regret the error.
While we’re on the topic of WSDOT’s photos, I recommend their flickr sets. In particular, this one on the SR-99 tunnel has some really impressive shots.
On the other hand, the weekday bridge traffic wasn’t supposed to fall over.
That’s another post in itself. Neither of these are going to take nearly as much traffic as they say they were planned for.
That chart doesn’t show the effect of tolling. KOMO reported in October that 520 commuting is down by half since the tolling began, and overall commuting over Lake Washington down by 20%.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Study-shows-steep-traffic-decline-on-520-bridge-since-tolling-227665651.html
It doesn’t show the effect of tolling because it was created before the tolls went into effect.
Yes. 520 tolling started at the end of 2011 and the last data point was 2010.
The 520 tolls were supposed to reduce traffic on the bridge. That was the purpose of the federal grant that paid for the work to implement tolling on the existing bridge. Seems to be working.
I haven’t looked closely, but I think the current traffic levels are in line with the investment grade traffic study WSDOT did to support the sale of bonds for the project.
I don’t think you understand that graph. Every data point is before tolling was implemented.
I think we all understood that the graph shows pre-tolling data only (and a sharp contrast between reality and projections).
It seemed relevant to also bring in the post-tolling info, since the effect is so dramatic in the context of this graph. If commute traffic has dropped by half, then the new data points are dramatically off the scale below the X axis of the old graph.
Perhaps the feds intended this, as Paul mentions. But I think it raises interesting questions of why the bridge and east side capacity is being expanded, and also why there is an unfunded plan to expand capacity on the west side.