The end of soaring, the start of tunneling

Here in the Land of Endless Ideas, the Seattle waterfront is now down to only (count them!) eight scenarios that could take shape in place of the current Alaskan Way Viaduct.

To a packed house at Seattle City Hall Thursday evening, stakeholders — a favorite phrase around here — heard an articulate and thorough briefing from transportation professionals on the way the shore of Elliott Bay will be circuitously engineered.

Since costs were not part of the scenario presentation, it's hard to say which tunnel or street plan would be acceptable. It's also difficult to say where you should lay your money — on a deep-bore tunnel or a languid street along the waterfront with a 30-mile-per-hour speed limit.

More important to understand is that in the current worldview of the state and the city, the viaduct replacement is only the first stitch in a larger scenario to redirect cars and trucks through the city and I believe, place stricter limits on car use.

Asked early in the evening by one of the stakeholders if any of the new plans continue the current capacity on the viaduct, the answer came back: yes, but only when the total stage production of streets and bus lanes are considered. In other words, new traffic will match the current high use of the viaduct, but in different forms.

One can only read between the lines at this stage. Picking one out of eight ideas is like choosing the right duck out of a flock. But we know two ideas have not made the cut and are essentially dead: a retrofit of the current viaduct, and the far-more-imaginative idea of a grand suspension bridge fording Elliott Bay and giving the waterfront a new life.

Unlike other parts of the world, soaring bridges is not what we do. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay or the modern bridges of Scandinavia are not part of the plans for the link over Lake Washington or even a piece of it, and certainly not for the Seattle waterfront and Elliott Bay. That seems an opportunity missed, but perhaps even the Land of Ideas has limits.

The things that struck me Thursday night about the presentations were staff competency and the realization that some ideas are window dressing and some are for real.

It's hard to imagine applause for Scenario E, for example, which would put about 70 feet of lidded thoroughfare along the bay, with cars and retail below treetops — something like the lidding across Mercer Island, but adding retail. That idea just seems unacceptable to notions of clearing off the viaduct barricade and opening the waterfront.

A deep-bore tunnel, 100 feet below ground and underneath the current railroad tunnel, may have some cost advantages, with side-by-side tunnels, each with two lanes and a 50 mph speed limit.

Statements from transportation documents say the governor will announce which approach she favors in December (after the election) and the state may take an amalgam of some ideas and patch together something that takes from several plans.

Except for the deep tunnels, I don't see any plan that will actually replace the speed and volume values of the current viaduct and I see a whole host of issues that will make driving in Seattle more complicated and less friendly toward cars — but I think that's the idea.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera