I've not seen the Seattle Waterfront since August of 2017. At that point in time the Alaskan Way Viaduct was still operational, moving vehicles, and being an eyesore of a barrier between downtown Seattle and the waterfront.
A tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct was almost finished when I visited Seattle in 2017. When that tunnel was finished, the Alaskan Way Viaduct came down, bringing on the massive rebuilding of the Seattle Waterfront into the pedestrian friendly, aesthetically pleasing reality we see in the 2025 photo of a section of the Seattle waterfront.
I am looking forward to an upcoming return to the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Tacoma, and my old home zone of the Skagit Valley.
Yesterday Senator Patty Murray ran a bottle of champagne down a zipline to christen a pair of tunnel digging machines that will be working next to each other to dig southbound and northbound tunnels under Capitol Hill to connect the University of Washington with Capitol Hill and Westlake Center,
This will be Sound Transit's University Link of the ever growing Puget Sound light rail system.
University Link will cost around $2 billion. The tunnel part of the link is two miles long. The tunneling phase will last 14 to 18 months, with the link scheduled to be completed in 2016.
Soon the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunneling will begin. Seattle has a lot of tunneling going on.
All this tunneling had me thinking back to when the downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel was built back in the 1990s. That tunnel was built with future rail in mind. But, they got the rails wrong and that had to be re-done. The buses that run in the Seattle Transit Tunnel have to be dual buses. Meaning they run on both diesel and electricity. This makes for very expensive buses.
To enter the tunnel a bus has to stop and attach the electric power from a line over head.
I remembering wondering at the time the transit tunnel was built why a ventilation system was not doable, rather than having to have dual powered buses.
Now I'm really wondering about this, due to the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel. Vehicles entering that tunnel will not be required to be dual powered vehicles. The Viaduct replacement tunnel is deeper than the Seattle Transit Tunnel.
So, how is the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel to be ventilated? It seems like a tunnel with cars running through it is going to generate a lot more to ventilate than buses running through a tunnel.
The need for the dual buses in the Seattle Transit Tunnel, rather than ventilation, has perplexed me for almost 20 years. And now it perplexes me more than ever.
I go through phases of thematic nightmares. Variations of the themes will repeat and then fade away.
Currently my recurring nightmare themes are...
1) I get in a situation where my dad is driving. I ask him to slow down. He then careens out of control and we are airborne, flying off a high precipice. Yet somehow my dad safely lands the car, every time.
2) A rattlesnake will slither out of a light socket and then chase me.
3) I can not get light switches to turn on lights for me. I know. Deep Freudian meaning there. Same with the snake. And probably my dad's driving.
4) I am parking my car under Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct when the Big One strikes.
I think I began having the Alaskan Way Viaduct nightmare after I watched a YouTube video simulating what would happen to the Viaduct if an earthquake similar to the 2001 Nisqually shaker, lasted 20 seconds longer, was 10 miles closer and a .2 magnitude greater.
I think the reason I'm parking under the Viaduct in my nightmare is because the last time I was in Seattle I had a hard time finding a parking space under the Viaduct, then gave up and went elsewhere and had some more trouble finding a parking place. Parking in Seattle used to be so easy. Not anymore.
After the 2001 Nisqually Quake damaged the Viaduct it was pretty much unanimously agreed that something had to be done to remove the danger. There had been talk of that danger ever since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake knocked down a structure similar to the Viaduct, that being the Cypress Street Viaduct on Interstate 880 in Oakland, killing 42.
Now that agreement has been reached to spend a few $billion to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel, ready for vehicles, hopefully, in about 5 years, I'm thinking the Viaduct needs to come down now. Why take a 5 year chance on an earthquake knocking it down?
I'm guessing if the Viaduct were taken down now it would expedite the building of the new tunnel. Yes, it would cause some traffic problems. Already trucks are not allowed on the Viaduct. The voluntary loss of the Viaduct would likely get more people on mass transit. That would be a good thing.
It would be more than horrible for a quake to take down the Viaduct, with the solution in motion, killing people, doing damage, slowing up construction.
I have always disliked the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It's been there all my life, noisy, casting a shadow on the waterfront, putting up a wall between downtown Seattle and the waterfront.
Take it down. NOW.
And if you want to risk Alaskan Way Viaduct Earthquake nightmares, watch the YouTube video below....
