Opponents of the deep bore tunnel are getting desperate. Now some are proposing a City referendum. Assuming your standpoint is something other than “stop the tunnel at all costs,” this is a ridiculous idea. Without getting into the minutiae, here are a few major flaws in their thinking.

1. It would cause delay, which would increase cost. To ensure top-quality, low-price proposals, WSDOT would presumably postpone the team selection, and much of the public deal finalization would be delayed as well. Even if the referendum resulted in a “go,” this would risk moving the pricing into a period of general economic recovery. As everyone in construction knows, any economic recovery will cause prices to rise substantially due to higher material costs, normalization of margins at every level, etc. The current RFP process is well timed to take advantage of low pricing that we know will last into early next year, but might not last much longer.

2. If opponents were to win, what then? Would it be a simple matter of clarifying Seattle’s exposure to overruns, or would it stop the tunnel concept entirely? Does anyone think that another option would be more popular? Based on who is supporting the referendum, it sounds like the “surface” option is their intended goal. That might play well in some neighborhoods, but it’s the worst nightmare for many of the viaduct’s

The deep bore tunnel being studied as part of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement will carry four lanes of traffic under downtown Seattle. Much of the two-mile-long tunnel will go through glacial till, reaching a depth of 220 feet. Image courtesy of WSDOT

3. It would be a City referendum for a State project that affects the whole metro. I agree that the cost risk should be shared by the State and the City…which currently appears to be the case, barring any future contract language that specifies otherwise. Aside from the issue of Seattle’s risk, there’s the issue of who the viaduct belongs to. Referendum supporters appear to be forgetting that tunnel is a State project, and serves a region-wide traveling public. Do they really think the State will let Seattle delete a regional lifeline? If the tunnel were stopped, the result would be another highway of some kind. Probably an aerial replacement, built a couple years after the current plan during a time of much higher pricing. The no-replacement people would get to look at THAT for the next 60 years, which horrifies me as well.

4. The other concepts have MORE cost risk. In 2008 it could be argued that a tunnel had higher cost risk than an aerial option. Off the cuff, the opposite seems to be true today. The tunnel has gone through a year and a half of intense study, design, and improvement since becoming the chosen option. A replacement viaduct (or any other concept) would start over with very minimal design, very minimal knowledge of what’s under the existing viaduct, and very minimal idea of what would be needed to minimize the considerable construction inconveniences. Further, those who prefer other options typically forget to include the cost of knitting South Lake Union and Lower Queen Anne back together via a lowered Aurora, which would be a much more difficult project in their scenarios, and they leave the current tunnel severely under code. (This is all completely separate from the hidden costs of disruption (during construction and permanently) with the surface, aerial, or cut-n-cover options, which would dwarf the project cost in every instance.)

In another blog post I discussed why the idea that driving will suddenly become unpopular (an idea held by many surface option supporters) is wrong as well. I won’t get into the opponents claims about overruns on past projects, which are based on ancient history rather than the modern practices of agencies like WSDOT, Sound Transit, etc., who have done well in keeping their recent work on budget.

I suspect the referendum won’t happen because smarter heads will prevail. And if it does, it’ll probably lose, because as some old polling suggested, the public’s #1 priority is to get it done, even among many people who consider the tunnel their second or third favorite option. The tunnel is a good plan, which does an excellent job of balancing millions of viewpoints, and is ultimately the lowest-risk concept.

The New York Times has an interesting article on how Seattle Children’s hospital is using an efficiency system to help it avoid some capital spending.  Here’s the story.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct and downtown Seattle. Photo courtesy of Clair Enlow.

Reading Clair Enlow’s very insightful piece in yesterday’s DJC gave me hope.  For too long all I’ve heard about is the proposed new Central Waterfront park that could some day replace the dead zone now created by the Alaskan Way Viaduct.  Don’t get me wrong; parks can be great and we do need more gathering space(s) at the City’s front door, but the thought of a single, long, linear park in that location would send shudders down my spine!

When I read that partnership committee member Mark Reddington stated exactly what I’ve thought all along, my fears started to relent, and hope entered the picture.  “This isn’t just a single space,” he said.  “It really should be a deeply integrated place.”

That’s exactly right. that does three crucial things: 1) knits back together the waterfront and the downtown neighborhoods uphill; 2) creates a new series of microneighborhoods with their own new and exciting character, and finally 3) provides a series of interesting, engaging, diverse, interconnected public spaces.

Stated succinctly, Seattle has not done a good job (yet) with downtown public open spaces. In addition, for some reason the political ethos has not yet warmed to the notion so prevalent elsewhere around the world of a genuine integration of public spaces with other public, semiprivate and private uses to achieve truly urbane spaces.  Just look at Westlake Park versus Westlake Plaza (next to the Westlake Center).  The City’s ludicrous policy of essentially disallowing any private activities (vendor carts, spill out of café tables or sales tables) onto public land leaves that park rather lackluster.  Just across the street, on private land, the smaller Westlake Plaza, complete with its coffee shop, vendor stands and exhibits is often so lively and populated it can actually become crowded. For an important civic space in a major city’s downtown that’s not a bad problem to have!

Can you imagine if that policy were allowed to prevail in the much larger central waterfront public spaces?  Just think of Pier 62/63, where not even a popcorn stand, hotdog vendor or espresso stand can be found in that vast, vacant, yet valuable space.  Yes, the view is lovely there, but imagine how much richer the experience would be if there were some minor services or amenities, together with more movable tables and chairs.

If we can truly shed this mindset and move towards an underlying principle of a genuine integration of public and private spaces, activities and uses, then we will have set the stage for a remarkable central waterfront neighborhood that could become the envy of cities across the country.

The remarks by Cary Moon, Clair Enlow and Mark Reddington are giving me hope. Let’s work with them and support this new vision for the central waterfront.

The city of Seattle has produced a flyover video that shows the Broadway alignment of the First Hill streetcar route. Click here for video.

The city and Sound Transit are moving forward with plans to build the new streetcar line linking First Hill

Visualization courtesy of city of Seattle.

The city and Sound Transit have executed an agreement that includes an expedited construction timeline. The line is anticipated to open in 2013 instead of the 2016 completion as was earlier planned.

The city will build and operate the new line, which voters approved as part of the 2008 Sound Transit 2 ballot measure.

The First Hill Streetcar will serve major Seattle work centers, including Swedish Hospital, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle University and Seattle Central Community College.

The line will link to the Link light rail system that opened this summer and the Capitol Hill light rail station when University Link opens in 2016. The city plans to begin construction in 2011.

SeattleScape blogger Irene Wall has an update on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s plans to relocate six research vessels to Newport, Ore. from Seattle next year. It is a press release from U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell on construction under way in Newport of the Marine Operations Center – Pacific pier to serve as home port for the NOAA vessels. In the release, Cantwell questions Commerce Secretary Gary Locke about the move.  Read it here. You can read Wall’s view of NOAA’s choice in the post below.

If NOAA ships lift Newport’s spirits, their hopes will be dashed soon enough but not before $30 plus million is spent on a pipe dream. I’ve watched the NOAA drama play out for the last year through the lens of NOAA engineers close to the crazy decision to move the Marine Operations Center-Pacific, a large vessel maintenance function, to a place with no marine infrastructure to support it. This guarantees added cost to all taxpayers, and little payback to Newport despite their wishful thinking.  The “175 family wage jobs” used to sell the proposal as an economic development project is greatly exaggerated.  Counting all the NOAA officers, civilian engineers and technicians who are the permanent MOC-P staff, the real number is 77 at best. The rest are wage mariners and scientists who are unlikely to take up permanent residence in Newport because their ships will only be tied to the new expensive and oversized wharf a few months of the year.  Most of the time the ships are at sea or in a drydock for major repairs in Seattle, Portland, Bellingham, or even San Francisco because that’s where the real shipyards are, not in Newport.  The majority of the scientists are also in Seattle at the Western Regional Center at Sand Point.
A little known fact is that the Oregon taxpayers are subsidizing NOAA to the tune of $19.5 million to build

NOAA Ships at WRC in Lake Washington, 2009. No Complaints from the neighbors. Photo courtesy of Irene Wall.

And—surprise—NOAA Corps officers and mariners who may move there don’t have to pay Oregon income tax.  They can call any state their Home of Record and avoid paying state income tax this way.
If this seems like a terrible hoax, it gets worse with a closer look at the reasoning behind the move and the “circle the wagons” mentality NOAA officials took when Senator Maria Cantwell and two independent watchdog agencies asked questions about NOAA’s decision to build in a floodplain and reject offers by the General Services Administration to use existing federal buildings and waterfront facilities in Seattle rather than spend millions on new buildings and piers in Newport.
On May 26th the Office of the Inspector General sent to NOAA a memo essentially saying STOP until we sort this mess out.
Instead, NOAA joined a party June 6th at the Port of Newport to show off its newest ship the Bell M Shimada which arguably should have been using its high tech multibeam sonar to track the Great Gulf Oil Slick instead of making PR appearances in Newport.
Environmental Roulette
Why should we care about this?  It’s just a few ships leaving Seattle, and we’re just being sore losers.  Maybe, but the NOAA move raises an even greater question —what is the environmental price for moving ships to Newport?  The Newport boomers see dollar signs; they want growth. It’s Deus Ex NOAA. Yet why would NOAA, whose Fisheries Service branch,  “is dedicated to the stewardship of living marine resources through science-based conservation and management, and the promotion of healthy ecosystems” chose to build a huge 64,000 SF wharf in their own recently designated Critical Fish Habitat for the endangered green sturgeon?
The recently filed  Oregon State Lands permit application on the project goes on for pages describing how critically important eelgrass habitat is for a dozen species of fish in Yaquina Bay and how difficult eelgrass mitigation is and how they searched the entire area and could only find three disconnected little spots to attempt the “restoration” of eelgrass. Yikes, how about NOT destroying it in the first place. Conservation before mitigation!  As local officials clamp down on permits for any new habitat shading dock, you would expect NOAA to model better behavior.
The permit’s spin is that the mitigation eelgrass will be “better” than the existing resources (if it gets established!). This sounds like destroying the village in order to save it. If there is a compelling reason to plant more eelgrass in Yaquina Bay, NOAA should just do it, but not hold eelgrass restoration goals hostage

NOAA Ship at Federal Center South, June 2010. Plenty of room here.

At a time when President Obama is asking all federal agencies to cut back, NOAA is insisting on all new digs for ships that will only be tied up at the “homeport” a fraction of the year.
The Port of Newport and NOAA appear to be trying to box in the Corps of Engineers by going ahead with upland construction even before the formal public notice period on the permit. There’s still a chance that the Corps will see the light and deny the permit because by their own rules, they must only approve the “least environmentally damaging practicable alternative” and they are not limited to NOAA or Newport’s definition of what that should be.

Office building construction has been a mainstay of urban and suburban development for decades. But will it always be, at least in decent economic times? To some extent it likely will in the Seattle area, with our always-growing population and our success in key industries. But even here, the volume will probably slow down compared to recent decades. In metros that aren’t growing, I suspect that office development will slow to the level needed to replace whatever is lost, or even start to shrink a little.

The drivers of heavy past growth have played out — particularly the conversion to a white collar economy, and massive employment growth as women entered the workforce. Today, plenty of drivers point in the other direction, or might soon.

It used to be that most white collar jobs didn’t offshore easily. Many now do, or soon will. This trend isn’t a steady line and each industry’s experience is unique, often resulting in fits and starts, but the general direction seems clear. Our economy might get noticeably less white collar in the coming years.

Telecommuting is starting to live up to its potential. Even while most of us crave human contact, the basic telecommuting tools are finally getting easy. Broadband on the computer and phone. Teleconferencing with a simple webcam. Home access to networks rather than just email. If commuting is a challenge too, or expensive as oil prices rise….the planets are starting to align for more telecommuting.

Office square footage per person seems to be shrinking. Some of this is a reaction to cost, both in a great economy when space is expensive, and in a bad economy when tenants have less money. Some of it is cultural, as companies choose communalism over personal space. But it’s also structural — things that have always required a lot of space are requiring less and less, from filing cabinets we no longer need because of digital documents, to flat-screen monitors that allow shallower desks, to cell phones that allow people to step away for private conversations rather than relying on walls.

Some companies are going as far as not having assigned desks at all, which is related to the telecommuting trend and the digital trend. Maybe each person has a rolling cart with his or her personal stuff, plus a laptop on Wi-Fi. Maybe the office has 50 staff but only 20 or 30 desks, where people camp as-needed.

I don’t expect age demographics to have a big effect, at least not directly. Some suggest that as baby boomers reach retirement, they’ll take white collar jobs with them, particularly fewer new people will be entering the workforce (boomers’ kids are entering the workforce now, but after them comes another baby bust). But I suspect that the number of white collar jobs will be tied to demand for the services they provide, not the availability of the same people to provide those services. The main age-related demographic effect should be cultural, as younger people adapt better to freeform offices, and might be more open to telecommuting from the coffee shop.

Even as some trends become clear, there are too many questions to be sure about the bottom line. As some office jobs go away, will others take their place? If not, what other jobs will? Will wages in other countries rise relative to ours, which might help keep jobs from offshoring? What will the dollar do? Will people really telecommute effectively, in large numbers? Will anyone retire anytime soon?

If you’re looking for a positive on the commercial development side, here’s a big one: There might be a lot more housing construction in business districts. These will pencil more often because, for one, they won’t have to compete as much with office developments. The same traffic and oil price issues that may reduce commuting will encourage proximity for many people, even as some telecommuters head for the hills. Living in a mixed-use district seems poised to keep growing as a lifestyle choice, as each wave of added residents makes a district more attractive for the next wave. Heck, if you believe that the US will lose some of its economic primacy, maybe places like Seattle will end up being second home destinations for people from overseas, like Vancouver.

Unrelated aside: The City should go easy on the Macy’s skybridge. The store is important to Downtown, and we should support it rather than penalizing it. I agree that Seattle shouldn’t have a skybridge network, but they’re ok in special circumstances, particularly when they already exist.

Next American City has an article that looks at bringing cars back to pedestrian malls. It says that four decades

Sacramento’s K Street Transit Mall. Credit: El Cobrador.

The Seattle Times has a story saying the Tateuchi Foundation is giving $25 million toward the creation of a

Plans for the Tateuchi Center, in Bellevue, include a 2,000-seat concert hall and an intimate, 250-seat cabaret-style venue, according to The Seattle Times.

2,000-seat performance center in downtown Bellevue.
The gift reinvigorates the capital campaign for what was formerly called the Performing Arts Center Eastside (PACE), and will now be called the Tateuchi Center, the story says.
Read it here:

Journal of Commerce reporter Marc Stiles recently wrote a compelling story that talks about the potential tolling of all major roads in this area. Here it is:

The Puget Sound Regional Council is expected to approve a far-reaching plan this afternoon that could lead to tolling of all major roads in the metropolitan area by 2030.

Meanwhile, the Washington State Department of Transportation plans to spend another $7 million on roadway tolling consultants.

These moves show how wide spread tolling is likely to become in Washington.

Last year, WSDOT hired Electronic Transaction Consultants of Texas to operate a new statewide customer service center for toll operations. ETC will provide customer service for an electronic tolling program called Good to Go. The company also will process payments and collect money from toll scofflaws. The five-year contract is valued at approximately $23 million.

Now WSDOT is hiring teams to work together as the statewide general toll consultant. Engineers and management consultants are needed to help plan toll systems, according to Janet Matkin, WSDOT toll marketing communications manager.

Consultants’ proposals are due June 1, according to the notice in the May 14 DJC.

This will be a three-year contract. WSDOT anticipates spending $3 million in the first year, and $2 million per year after. There is an option to extend the contract to five years or more.

The state now tolls the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the state Route 167 HOT lanes. Motorists driving alone on SR 167 can pay to drive in the carpool, or high-occupancy vehicle, lanes. HOT stands for high-occupancy toll.

Starting next spring, SR 520 bridge tolls will be collected electronically through prepaid Good to Go accounts or by mail via bills sent to registered vehicle owners. Toll rates will vary depending on the time of day; the goal is to encourage more off-peak travel and reduce congestion.

WSDOT also is looking at tolling the Eastside corridor, which is more than 50 miles long and connects Interstate 405 to state routes 167 and 512. WSDOT officials studied the matter with representatives of cities in the corridor. The group recommended that WSDOT phase in tolling, starting with the Bellevue-to-Lynnwood portion of 405.

Another possibility is tolling vehicles that use the proposed tunnel that could replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct on Seattle’s waterfront, as well as vehicles on the proposed Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River between Vancouver and Portland.

Regionwide tolls

Last year, the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board endorsed a plan called Transportation 2040. It would move the region away from gas taxes and other traditional revenue sources toward user fees, including tolls on freeways and other major highways.

The plan assumes that by 2020 all major roads will be either tolled or have HOT lanes. By 2030, all lanes will be fully tolled. The plan also says the region should consider replacing the fuel tax with a charge for miles traveled.

PSRC released the final environmental impact statement on the plan in March, and the PSRC General Assembly is scheduled to adopt the plan at its meeting at 3:30 p.m. today at the Doubletree Arctic Club Hotel at 700 Third Ave., in Seattle.

Ninety-seven percent of the Executive Board voted for the plan in December. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola cast the no votes. Based on the overwhelming approval last year, a PSRC representative said the General Assembly is expected to approve the plan.

A McGinn spokesperson said the mayor voted against the plan because it does not meet “our objectives for transit, land use, social equity, or greenhouse emissions. Instead of moving our region forward in improving transit, density, equal access to infrastructure and greenhouse gas reductions, the plan will preserve the status quo with only relatively modest investments in transit and biking, coupled with massive expansions of new highways.”

(Editor’s note: This original story has been updated to explain why McGinn voted no.)

The plan includes $191 billion worth of transportation projects. Among them are completing projects in the Sound Transit 2 package that voters OK’d in 2008; and finishing state Route 167, the Cross Base Highway in Pierce County and state Route 509 south of Sea-Tac Airport.

The plan supports replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the SR 520 floating bridge. Other highways would be widened. A complete list of the projects is at psrc.org.

A PSRC analysis shows financing exists for only about $125 billion of the projects. PSRC staff members said in December that this doesn’t necessarily mean the plan is financially impractical. They said about half of the $66 billion shortfall could come from toll revenue.

WSDOT’s plan to hire a statewide toll consultant is not directly related to the tolling recommendations in Transportation 2040, but does recognize the role tolling will play in the construction of large transportation projects in Washington, Matkin said.

The General Assembly is composed of elected officials representing PSRC members, including King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties, 71 cities and towns, the region’s port districts, transit agencies and tribes.