Viadoom Is Coming Soon!

Here's a snippet from ShiftWA's New Year's Eve edition...

“It’s going to be horrible for pretty much everyone unless we can figure out some small changes we can all make,” Seattle councilmember Mike O’Brien said about the upcoming viaduct closure. In roughly two weeks the Alaskan Way Viaduct will permanently close. “Obviously if you’re someone who uses 99 now you’re going to have to think directly what you do differently, but a lot of those vehicles will go to I-5,” O’Brien said. (My Northwest)

Nearly everywhere in the region, from Olympia at the south end to Marysville north of Everette, the traffic through this narrow section of land between the Puget Sound to the west and Lake Washington on the east, has been intolerable for decades with the influx of new families moving in to take jobs available because of the stable, diverse and strong employment opportunity here.

Now, after years of delays in getting "Bertha" to dig the underground tunnel along the Seattle waterfront right next to Elliot Bay (~30 ft.), the scene is set for traffic bedlam. (Good luck to those using the tunnel when the expected major earthquake hits sometime in the future.)

Use either link above to read the full article for details, but as someone who's commuted for ten years to Seattle from Federal Way, I can honestly say that this looming problem is going to blow up in the face of not only the city council, but the state's DOT because the suggestions made in this article as to how one can adjust to this change are a joke!

Shifting one's meeting starts by a half-hour won't even be close to sufficient for those stuck the traffic gridlock trying to get to the later meeting.

For the years when I was commuting into Seattle via I-5 and the SODO district surface streets, the traffic was absolutely horrendous! 

95% of the time the traffic near the north section of I-5 along Boeing Field would be at a crawl because of the four lanes three miles ahead would reduce down to two lanes at the Seneca exit just north of I-90. A 30 mile drive took me 45 minutes when traffic was half-way reasonable!

If I took the West Seattle bridge exit onto the surface streets of the SODO district the port trucks and buses would clog up the streets; not to mention the construction going on on 4th Ave. 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was learned in the future that the actual purpose behind creating such an unbearable situation for downtown Seattle workers - like my older daughter - was to cause such a crisis that it would provide liberals in the state's legislature to say, "See? Here's proof that we need more taxes to fix this problem."

Yea? Well, explain to me why they've spent so much of our tax dollars on HOV lanes that are a joke, and mass transit is an even bigger joke due to their unreliable schedules and light rail construction  overruns!