Seattle Press on Line - Viaduct Via Truck is Seattle’s Lifeline

Seattle Press Editorial

Viaduct Via Truck is Seattle’s Lifeline

Sep 06, 2000 -- One hundred ten thousand vehicles, about half going north, half going south, use the Alaskan Way Viaduct every weekday. What would happen if the viaduct were not there?

The question arises as the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) begins a basic study of the viaduct to determine how it would fare in an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or higher on the Richter Scale. The study will last 18 months and will cost $500,000. The study will ask "Is there a different approach that might provide a better opportunity for everyone?"

Possible approaches would be (1) tearing down the viaduct and building a new one (no cost estimates available); (2) tearing it down and shifting traffic elsewhere; or (3) keeping what we've got and strengthening it against a magnitude 7.5 quake: price tag, $350-500 million.

The ungainly structure was built in three sections between 1949 and 1953 by two different government agencies. The northern part was built by the city, the southern part by the state. The northern part consists of two side-by-side elevated structures. Near the Pike Place Market, the viaduct transitions to a double-deck structure.

Recently, a group of local architects stirred up a storm of public concern and protest when they presented a plan at a Department of Design, Construction and Land Use (DCLU) conference to tear down the viaduct and use the land for 5.8 acres of new commercial development, 9 acres of open space and 1.5 acres of additional parking. Seattle Times columnist Jean Godden reported on the proposal and the avalanche of responses she got: "before the end of the day, my phone receiver melted, my voice mailbox reached saturation and the e-mail printouts measured an inch deep."

Most people agree that the viaduct is one of the ugliest structures ever built. But many love it for the spectacular views it provides of the harbor and the Olympics. Others know it as the best way to the airport from most places in North Seattle. But few people realize that Alaskan Way is a vital artery to Seattle business and removing it "would be like Seattle cutting its own throat," according to Warren Aakervik. Aakervik is head of Ballard Oil, which brings in 1,600 loads a year of diesel oil for sale to the marine industry and for home heating oil. "There's no alternative route to Alaskan Way for getting trucks into the Ballard and Interbay industrial areas," Aakervik says. "There's no other direct route between Ballard and Harbor Island. Its insane to think you could just take all that traffic and shift it over to I-5. Just getting to I-5 through the neighborhoods would be a nightmare, and I-5 would be strangled more than it is, even with two additional lanes."

The viaduct carries about 25 percent of Seattle's north-south arterial traffic, according to WSDOT figures. A 1996 WSDOT study found that if the viaduct were removed, "traffic volumes on I-5 are not expected to change much, because it is already operating at full capacity." All the extra traffic would be shifted to city streets. Traffic on north-south city streets would increase from 8 percent to 200 percent.

This means that truck traffic from Ballard and Interbay would probably get to I-5 by coming across Leary, through Fremont, across the Fremont Bridge to Westlake, then to I-5 via Mercer.

Here's our take on it: let's strengthen the viaduct in hopes it will withstand the big one that looms somewhere in Seattle's future.

Tearing it down for good, or even to re-building, it would exert grievous harm to the city. Business transportation costs and time would increase and we just couldn't handle the shifted traffic on any existing streets. The quality of life for millions of people would suffer.

If it does come down through a natural disaster, that will be an opportunity to re-think and rebuild it. (We'd favor an underground six-lane road with a landscaped lid and promenade along the entire waterfront.) But let's not bring a disaster on ourselves by ripping out a vital artery and having no way to move our lifeblood.

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