Option to tear down viaduct appears to gain some traction

Amid all the debate about whether the Alaskan Way Viaduct should be replaced with a tunnel or another bridge, a third proposal is quietly gathering steam: Tear it down.

First floated two years ago by the People's Waterfront Coalition, the notion that the city could survive without a viaduct has been dismissed by the state Department of Transportation and the city.

But one City Council member said the idea should be studied, and the Sierra Club recently sent a letter to Council President Nick Licata urging that the city consider a surface-street and transit alternative before embarking on a costly replacement plan.

"We are highly dissatisfied with the current highway options presented by WSDOT — both of which assume that our waterfront must accommodate 100,000 vehicle trips daily," wrote Kevin Fullerton, chairman of the Sierra Club political committee. "We believe that the future demands more imaginative solutions that do not so flagrantly compromise our environmental values and anticipate cityscapes less enslaved to car dependency."

Licata said he intends to put the no-build option on the ballot in November when city voters are asked what option they support for replacing the viaduct. He said he has prepared a resolution and it will be discussed at the council's Transportation Committee meeting Tuesday.

"I would also like to see a third option of just offering a surface solution," Licata said. "By offering all three options to the public, I believe that we could finally put this matter to rest and move on to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct."

Cary Moon, a carless advocate who lives downtown, heads the waterfront coalition and said the state needs to rethink its assumptions on the viaduct.

She says of the 105,000 vehicles the coalition estimates that now use the viaduct each day, 30,000 could be diverted by people simply not driving in the corridor and finding jobs closer to where they live. Another 30,000 could be shifted to transit, while 55,000 could find other streets through downtown Seattle.

But she may have one major obstacle: The $2 billion allocated to the viaduct under the new gas-tax increase is for replacing it. If it's not replaced, the money could evaporate.

The legislation that authorizes the gas-tax money says it can't be used if it reduces capacity on the viaduct.

"The money the Legislature allocated clearly says it can't be used on any project if it reduces roadway capacity, and clearly this reduces roadway capacity," said Ron Paananen, viaduct project manager with the DOT. "We couldn't spend the $2 billion. It would be a long shot to count the $2 billion in for a no-build scenario."

The state, in dismissing Moon's plan, argues that it's impossible to assume that freight carriers and commuters who use the viaduct will go away or take transit.

"The impacts on adjacent city streets and [Interstate 5] are unacceptable," the state said in a report dismissing Moon's proposal.

"Traffic impacts of not replacing the viaduct are severe," the report said. "Not replacing the viaduct will cause severe congestion for most of the day and into the evening on I-5 and downtown arterial streets."

In 2004 the state studied what would happen if the viaduct were torn down and not replaced, and it found traffic along Alaskan Way would more than quadruple and the number of cars on downtown streets would grow as much as 50 percent.

It said as many as 56,000 cars would use Alaskan Way, compared with the Department of Transportation estimate of 110,000 today. And traffic on I-5 would increase by as many as 44,000 vehicles a day.

It's not certain whether the bill passed by the Legislature, which asks the City Council to either pick a replacement option by ordinance or put it on the November ballot, will allow the council to include a no-build option. But Councilman Peter Steinbrueck said he finds neither the tunnel nor rebuild option acceptable and wants a surface alternative on the ballot.

"We cannot let the central waterfront be totally devastated by a monstrous aerial-replacement structure that would be 50 percent larger than the existing viaduct," Steinbrueck said.

He said the tunnel option is not feasible because the city still needs about $1 billion more to build it.

"More importantly, both these options strongly put auto capacity over mobility," Steinbrueck said. "The tunnel option would suck up all available transportation dollars for the foreseeable future at great cost to other transportation needs."

Moon said traffic could shift to other Seattle streets, such as 4th and 5th and Dexter avenues. She has no specific plan about where traffic would go, and she suggested the city hire a consultant to prepare a no-build plan if it intends to put it on the ballot.

She also pointed out that the state said the viaduct could be closed up to three years during tunnel construction. "If it's closed three years, why can't they look at it as a permanent solution?" she asked.

She, too, hopes the council will put her plan on the ballot. "Choice A, Choice B and one other behind the curtain. That's not good decision-making," she said.

Moon said several questions need to be answered before any decision is made: How much will the options cost the average family? What will happen with Sound Transit? What will the waterfront really look like under the alternatives? And how will cars get through downtown during construction?

With replacement costs up to nearly $4 billion, Moon said, her plan would cost about $1.3 billion, which includes $400 million to tear down the viaduct, $600 million to replace the Alaskan Way seawall, and $300 million to improve city streets, including a new four-lane Alaskan Way.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com