Cascadia Prospectus

Transportation public-private partnerships should not be used to plug holes in a government budget. The proceeds should be directed to transportation capital investments. But the Chicago Tribune reports that under a new agreement starting January 1, the City of Chicago will lease for 75 years its 36,161 metered parking spaces to a Morgan Stanley partnership for $1.1 billion, with the proceeds going, variously: to patch the city budget through 2012; to a special fund to offset city revenue shortfalls tied to the economic downturn; to a special reserve fund; and to city programs for low-income individuals. I won't say this sort of, ah, creative attempt to breach city fiscal gaps smells exactly like the thousands of dead alewives that used to wash up on the 57th Street Beach in Hyde Park when I was growing up in Chicago, and giving tours of the captured German U-Boat at the Museum of Science and Industry. But it's sure not anywhere near what you'd call "best practices," either.

There are two upsides to the deal, which are not uncommon to P3s in transportation. A private management team with industry expertise will oversee the metered street parking system, including maintenance and operations. And a scarce public resource will be priced more competitively with private parking, driving more consumers to consider other options - like taking transit or ride-sharing, versus driving alone.

Back in the day, on temporary hiatus from college, I drove a limo for a service owned by a mean, badly-toupeed guy named Ribaldo - and used to pride myself on finding street parking for the beastly Caddies and stretch Lincolns in downtown Chicago anytime anywhere. But those days are as distant as a solvent federal gas tax trust fund.

As we've made clear repeatedly at this blog and elsewhere, we're all for properly structured public-private partnerships in surface transportation. P3s and heftier user fees through time-variable tolling, increased transit fares, and perhaps even a vehicle mileage tax will have to cover an increasing share of the infrastructure costs in major metro regions struggling to catch up with growth and beat congestion. The U.S. is improving but still far behind Europe, Canada and Australia in recognizing the robust life-cycle cost savings, accelerated project completion, and facility management benefits of transportation P3s.

However, public and political skepticism toward transportation P3s abounds, and one reason is that they can be used as cash cows to patch budget shortfalls resulting from poor management of public monies. For coherent, sound public stewardship, the lion's share of upfront proceeds to the government lessor in a P3 need to go back into the sector from whence they came, to meet high-priority infrastructure needs. Future cost avoidance and debt resolution may also be considered good cause for transportation P3s, but this "escape hatch" rationale has limited political appeal.

Chicago has been in the forefront of U.S. transportation P3s - a canary in the coal mine, if you will. The 2006 Chicago Skyway lease deal brought $1.8 billion to the city. As reported by the well-regarded magazine Illinois Issues, the proceeds went to: paying off city and Skyway debt; long-term investment reserves; mid-term investment with earnings used to help plug city budget holes until 2011; and after-school programs, parolee job training and services. Whiff of alewives, the prequel.

Another deal signed in 2006 had a better fragrance, fiscally. For $563 million the city entered a long-term lease with a private partnership to manage its underground parking garages on a long stretch beneath downtown city parks property including Grant Park - where for 25 years the world's largest free blues festival has been held, featuring such legends as Pinetop Perkins amidst a sea of liquid-fueled revelry. One of the garages was relatively new, but the rest were older, and one badly needed repairs. And parking garage management was not something at which the city excelled, versus, say, blues festivals. Better still, funds reaped from parks department properties went into new capital development for the city parks system. Then-City of Chicago Chief Financial Officer Dana Levenson told Parking Today:

"When an investor is waving a large check in front of you, it's going to have some influence....The city was on the hook for the debt service...payments that the garage revenues were servicing. What this did was that if you took the price that was paid against the amount of debt that was outstanding, there was a significant amount of excess left over, not to mention the $65 million or so in cost avoidance ... for the East Monroe Street Garage repair and rebuild.

You take that excess above and beyond the debt and you apply it to a capital budget for city parks throughout the city, not just downtown but throughout the neighborhoods. It was a rather elegant solution to a problem that we were having in terms of city parks that needed a capital budget and didn't have one before that.

.....Ultimately, for any municipality looking at an asset like this, they have to think about, first and foremost, not that they are going to get a lot of money but what they are going to use the money for. The municipality that takes the money and plugs their budget hole is doing itself and the taxpayers such a disservice, because the following year they will have the same budget hole and then some and they will have nothing to show for it."

The city's P3 deal this fall to lease Midway Airport to a private operator yielded $2.5 billion. As the Chicago Tribune noted, under a special state law, ninety percent of the remainder, after debt resolution, has to be apportioned to infrastructure projects, or public employee union pension funds.

The latter are an emerging, and important source of capital for P3 infrastructure investments, which can earn steady long-term returns for pensioners. But many city governments - not to mention major U.S. automakers - have over-promised and under-delivered to employee pension funds. Sales of public assets should not be used to stanch that bleeding for a few moments.

In addition to exacting contracts with private partners to protect the public interest in locales where the political environment actually encourages P3s, what would make sense are comprehensive laws in still more U.S. states, removing barriers to transportation P3s. These laws should also require that all proceeds from the lease or sale to private operators of existing, publicly-owned transportation assets be reinvested in transportation. Any operating revenues which might be apportioned to the government owner of the leased facility, should be used similarly.

Put another way: don't rob Peter to pay Paul. Peter in this case representing those who pay every day with time and money to use inadequate, congested surface transportation systems in our country's major metro regions.

RELATED:

"A State Agency Eyes Public-Private Transportation Funding," Crosscut.

"How To Pay For The Roads Still Travelled," Crosscut.

"Toll-booth-free Tolling On SR 520 and I-90," Crosscut.

"A Discriminating View Of Public-Private Partnerships," Cascadia Prospectus.

To supplant the aging and seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99, which blockades downtown Seattle from its waterfront, two elevated replacement options, three tunnel options and three surface/transit choices are under review. The state, King County and Seattle transportation department heads are to recommend a few semi-finalists as soon as the end of this week, with Governor Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Gregoire, and King County Executive Ron Sims then to make a final choice to the legislature by the end of this month or the middle of next month at the latest.

But Susan Gilmore of the Seattle Times reports today that some members of the Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC) for the viaduct replacement process are very concerned about the integrity of the effort.

One of the eight options right now is a behemoth mixed-use elevated, enclosed roadway strongly favored by Washington House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-Seattle), whose power is considerable. Meanwhile, the Governor, Mayor and King County Executive may be leaning strongly toward a surface boulevard and enhanced transit option. Business interests on the SAC and others, including our Cascadia Center, argue that the 110,000 daily vehicle trips on the Viaduct cannot possibly be handled well on a surface boulevard, and that when full costs to business, drivers and the environment are factored in, the deep-bored tunnel option trumps any of the others. From today's Times article:

"It's very frustrating to me," said Peter Phillips, a stakeholder representing the Seattle Marine Business Coalition. "We don't get materials in time to review them. We are not involved in an engineering discussion; this is a political engineering discussion."....Given a chance to have his say, Phillips believes a surface option, which the city supports, would destroy the industrial neighborhoods that rely on the viaduct.

"Surface is the cheapest to build, but what about the economic mitigation costs," he says. "It now takes 20 minutes [on the viaduct] to get from Ballard to the Duwamish [River]. With surface, it will take more than an hour. "My fear is that the state will position the surface option as being equal to all other options in capacity and environmental impact with the caveat that if things turn out differently, they'll build something to address those issues later."

Another advisory committee member thinks the deep-bored tunnel would be the choice of a majority serving on the body, if they were allowed to take a vote, and that this option is getting short shrift.

At a recent stakeholder meeting, the frustrations bubbled over. "I'm really, really unhappy the way this is coming to an end," said stakeholder Vlad Oustimovitch, an architect from West Seattle. "Stage managing is going on to make [the stakeholder group] irrelevant. I'm uncomfortable sitting at this table."

Last week, the stakeholders were briefed on the economic implications of the eight viaduct plans. The problem is there was no plan for them to review: The economist hadn't released it.....(Oustimovitcvh said), "There's definitely been some backroom discussion among the three DOTs [the Washington, Seattle and King County departments of transportation]. There's the sense right now that some kind of surface alternative will get selected....Oustimovitch supports the deep-bore tunnel alternative, the most expensive at $3.5 billion, and one he believes would be everyone's first or second choice. He asserts the extra cost can be made up in two ways: directly through tolls and indirectly by economic savings, by being able to keep the viaduct open during construction.

A report completed last month for Cascadia Center by the international transportation engineering firm Arup found that deep-bored roadway tunnels similar to what would be required to replace the Viaduct typically cost in the range of $200-$700 million per mile, which would translate a range of $400 million to $1.4 billion here. Last week, Cascadia sent a letter to the three executives urging that they include the deep-bored tunnel option as a finalist. Also endorsing a "sub-surface" or tunnel solution in another letter to those officials last week were The Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association, and the King County Labor Council.

The legislature budgeted $2.8 billion for viaduct replacement but about $1 billion has already been spent on related improvements and consultant work. The roughly $1.7 billion left - which must also cover about $400 million of downtown seawall replacement - could be augmented by tolling and investment from public employee union and building trades union pension funds. Additional funds from the city and Port of Seattle are a possibility.

The legislature makes the final decision on the replacement, during a busy session that begins next month. If the three execs choose a surface/transit option, the huge negative impacts on traffic and freight mobility in the SR 99/I-5 corridor will likely cause state lawmakers to reject that option, and quite possibly, settle for the elevated, enclosed roadway/mixed-use project supported by Speaker Chopp.

The SAC is to meet again tonight, in the Bertha Landes Room of Seattle City Hall, 600 4th Ave., at 5:30 p.m. It's expected that SAC member concerns will be thoroughly aired.

UPDATE, 5:10 p.m.: Tunnel construction industry experts based in Puget Sound today sent this letter to state, county and city officials, detailing the flaws with the current analysis of deep-bored tunnel costs. And on his show "The Conversation," KUOW-FM's Ross Reynolds hosted a discussion today titled "What Should Replace The Alaskan Way Viaduct?" Cascadia's Director Bruce Agnew was among the guests.

Thursday, transportation officials from the State of Washington, King County and the City of Seattle are to choose two or three finalist options from a field of eight or nine, for replacement of the seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on Seattle's downtown waterfront. Things are moving fast and furious and there is growing momentum for the deep-bored tunnel option - which compared to a new elevated viaduct or added surface street traffic would best minimize traffic congestion and environmental impacts, and open up the most public space on the waterfront.

With some 110,000 vehicles traveling the elevated roadway on State Route 99 every day, and the bulk of that traffic bypassing downtown, simply expanding surface street capacity and adding transit would result in unfathomable traffic jams on the city's waterfront and nearby Interstate 5. Leading business and labor groups have already urged decision-makers to keep tunnel options in play as the process advances.

Yesterday, a half dozen deep-bore tunnel industry experts sent a letter to the Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee explaining how current official estimates overstate the costs of a deep-bored tunnel. Last night at a meeting of the SAC, a ninth option was presented by Tayloe Washburn of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, a "surface-sub-surface hybrid" proposal that backers say could be a "grand compromise."

Meanwhile, the region's leading news radio station, KOMO 1000 AM, has continued to air the latest. Here's a link to some of the segments about the tunnel option's viability that have been airing yesterday and today from morning drive straight through evening drive. One from the top of the 2 p.m. hour today sums things up well.

ANCHOR: "A deep-bore tunnel may NOT be dead...Turns out there's growing support among stakeholders for that option and with good reason. KOMO's Travis Mayfield reports."

REPORTER: "New research has surfaced."

BRUCE AGNEW, CASCADIA CENTER: "We have a letter from tunnel experts that have studied it, and they think the tunnel can be built for somewhere around $1.5 billion, instead of the figure that the consultant team used."

REPORTER: "Bruce Agnew with the Cascadia Center says a deep bore tunnel could be built while the current viaduct remained open...the surface options and the rebuild options would both mean closure for at least 2 years. Thursday the nine options under consideration are expected to be narrowed to two or three, the governor should make a final decision by early next year. Travis Mayfield, KOMO 1000 News Radio."

Then the state legislature, which convenes in January, will make the final decision.

The Viaduct decision is regional and needs to be evaluated as part of where Puget Sound is, and is going, in surface transportation. Transit is growing in popularity and that is something we can all commend. But the vast majority of daily trips will continue to occur in vehicles and so a regional, time-variable electronic tolling system is essential to rationally price peak-hour capacity and encourage alternatives such as off-peak driving, more tele-work and ride-sharing, and transit use. Tolls should be used to pay for maintenance and operations of roads, new lanes as needed for regional tolling, and for transit in the same corridors where the tolls are collected.

The legislature is already poised to approve electronic time-variable tolling in 2009 to help fund the replacement of the dangerously storm- and earthquake-prone State Route 520 Floating Bridge across Lake Washington. It is now considered highly likely that decision will also involve tolling the parallel Interstate 90 bridge across the lake.

The Viaduct replacement and cracked, snarled I-5 through Seattle, as well as I-405 and envisioned extensions of SR 167 to the Port of Tacoma and SR 509 south to Federal Way from SeaTac Airport all would benefit greatly from user-fee toll funding, as would deadly US 2 in Snohomish County, which alone needs nearly $2 billion in fixes. People are willing to pay tolls. Neither meager gas tax hikes (which are all that is politically possible) plus infrastructure stimulus spending will come close to covering the tens of billions of identified, high-priority roads projects in Puget Sound. Our population is to grow by half in the next 30 years. Let's not make this Viaduct decision with blinders on.

Over the long-haul, the deep-bored tunnel combined with surface transit improvements, is the most cost-effective, and effective way to replace the hulking, noisy, dirty, crime-friendly, crumbling Viaduct that makes distinctly unpleasant the experience of walking from downtown Seattle to waterfront venues along Elliott Bay.

The "cheap" solution, "surface-transit" only, would glaringly fail to meet thru traffic volume. The resulting traffic congestion and overcrowding of the downtown waterfront with vehicles would exact a huge cost on quality of life and the economy.

You don't have to be in Seattle long to hear about the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Hugging the coastline, the aging structure carries north-south traffic through the city. It's been the topic of debate for what seems like an eternity. Why? Because it has to come down or mother nature may take it down.

By the time the clock reaches midnight on New Year's Eve, Governor Gregoire, King County Executive Sims and Mayor Nickels will have on their desks a list of final options for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. They'll make their decision in 2009.

Cascadia Center is at the heart of the debate and has long advocated construction of a deep-bored tunnel to carry traffic under the city.

Click below to see Cascadia's most recent release and links to supplemental material.

The last time anyone hazarded a report, it was estimated that a whopping four percent of daily trips in Puget Sound occurred on transit (second paragraph of p. E-6, here). That was in 2006. Let's say that percentage has now more than doubled to ten percent. You'd still have nine out of every ten daily trips, occurring in vehicles - versus scheduled transit. Beating traffic congestion in the real world, that's how leaders need to lead sometimes. Like now. With an historic decision for Puget Sound and Washington State partly unfolding later today on finalist options for replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99, an apropos reminder comes from our neighbor to the south, in Oregon. Editorial writer Rick Attig of The Oregonian is encouraged by improved odds for getting the "whole enchilada" version of the new variably-tolled bridge with light rail and a bike-pedestrian path built across the Columbia River, connecting Portland with booming Clark County, Wash. And, he notes:

Until recently, too much of the bridge debate has centered on issues such as whether speeding up commuter traffic would lead to more sprawl and development in the Vancouver area. There's been precious little public discussion about the enormous economic benefits of removing a chokehold from the region's transportation system, or the associated environmental benefits from ending the daily idling of thousands of cars and trucks on I-5.

Ka-ching, and Hello, Puget Sound. If decision-makers fall prey to the extreme social engineering impulse and decide to tear down the Viaduct portion of SR 99 - which carries 110,000 vehicle trips per day - without restoring adequate thru traffic capacity via a deep-bored tunnel, then as a result traffic downtown and on nearby, parallel Interstate 5 will grind to a halt. Tunnel experts say the deep-bored option is affordable, and the best choice by far. The Viaduct decision needs to be part of a broader regional plan for time-variable tolling. To boost transit use, the tunnel could be routed under Third Avenue downtown and a transit station could connect by escalator to the existing downtown transit tunnel which serves buses, and starting next year, Sound Transit light rail.

A compromise option combining elements of the "surface" solution and a tolled deep-bored tunnel is also on the table, along with an array of surface, tunnel and elevated Viaduct replacement options. We'll see later today whether wise heads prevail, or not.

Since the recommendation came Thursday Dec. 11 from Washington State Department of Transportation, King County and Seattle officials that the wobbly Alaskan Way Viaduct through downtown Seattle on State Route 99 should be replaced with either a surface boulevard system and more transit, or another elevated roadway, the reaction has been remarkable.

Remarkable because of how much support is being voiced for an option planners have essentially rejected for now, a deep-bored tunnel. Let's survey some of the blowback, which is only likely to grow. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's editorial board today writes:

...several troubling questions have arisen. Does a new, elevated structure really deserve to be one of just two finalists, with its massive commitment to autos and prospect of sealing the city off from its waterfront for perhaps the entire 21st century? For the surface option's waterfront boulevards, why do planners envision stoplights at virtually every block? Can even the most technologically advanced traffic signal synchronization system keep traffic flowing through all those intersections?

Most important, why have government officials tried to eliminate any longer-range option for eventually drilling a deep-bore tunnel should the surface plan wind up quickly overwhelmed by traffic growth? With boring technology advancing significantly, costs may be less than anticipated. And financing mechanisms, such as a regional tolling system, may change the feasibility of a tunnel for the better in the not-too-distant future, if not immediately.

A year-long review of ultimately eight semi-finalist options - conducted with advice of a special Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC) - preceded Thursday's winnowing. Next comes a recommendation from Governor Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, before the legislature makes the final choice in its Winter 2009 session.

Last Thursday after project consultants unveiled their two finalist choices, the SAC held its own discussion and 24 or 25 members either supported the deep-bore option being built or further examined. SAC member Vlad Oustimovich wrote a guest essay in the West Seattle Blog, stating:

The rebuilt viaduct option has been deemed unacceptable by both downtown and environmental interests, and the surface solution is unacceptable to both the business community as well as all of the commuters that depend on the Viaduct to get to their jobs....Neither of the two options offer a solution that will garner support from a broad base of constituents, and will undoubtedly once again lead us into acrimonious debate, dividing the region and stalemating the process.

...we all recognize that the most important thing is to maintain our ability to get around....We need to maintain our transportation capacity. The bored tunnel, although slightly more costly than a rebuild is a good investment.

Another SAC member, Pete Spalding, also penned a reaction for West Seattle Blog. Spalding wrote:

Under the (surface-transit option) if you leave West Seattle and drive through downtown going to north Seattle you will encounter 28 stop lights, a 90 degree turn to proceed through the Battery Street tunnel and a 30 mile per hour speed limit...I am not convinced that another elevated option will solve our transportation needs 50-plus years into the future. This is our opportunity to make Seattle a world class city with a world class waterfront. Building another elevated structure running along the waterfront does not help to accomplish that.

I lean toward the hybrid (tunnel and surface-transit) solution that has been brought forward by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce...I also encouraged the Executives to give a much stronger look at the deep bored tunnel option.....I am not convinced that the cost estimates have been thoroughly vetted and are somewhat exaggerated in materials that we were presented.

The West Seattle Chamber of Commerce has also written to the three execs, in support of the deep-bored tunnel option.

Writing in Crosscut is Bruce Chapman, president of our parent organization, Discovery Institute, and a former Seattle City Council member.

..a new Viaduct would represent the worst throwback to poor design in the history of the city and qualify Seattle for architectural booby-prizes for years to come. Such short sighted, single-purpose transportation thinking would consign the harborfront to blight and economic stagnation. After literally three decades of criticism of the present Viaduct, the region would inexcusably replicate the error for our posterity....the all-surface option will fare little better....As mitigation, there are some good ways proposed to improve traffic flow on downtown streets and expand transit use. A new lane squeezed out of I-5 would help, and is needed anyhow. But there is no reason to think such mitigation would begin to suffice in soaking up the existing (SR) 99 traffic flow. It would be an ironic environmental "improvement" that resulted in more clogged, polluting traffic tie-ups on the waterfront.

Even before an all-surface outcome is tested in practice, City, County and State will have agitated the already restive business, trade, and labor communities that consider politicians to be insensitive to what is required to make trade and commerce work on a waterfront. And - just to rev up the lawsuit and initiative process with real passion - the many Seattle area people who merely want to get through the downtown bottleneck as quickly as possible are going to be indignant over the prospect of start and stop, cheek by jowl traffic along Alaska Way.

Richard Carter of Seattle also highlights the importance of an SR 99 downtown bypass, in today's Seattle Times letters to the editor. More grave doubts about the two proposed finalist options, and endorsements of the tunnel, in the comment string at the end of this post at the blog, My Ballard.

The fallout is clear. Leading business and labor organizations, as well as international tunneling experts based in Puget Sound and neighborhood leaders, are voicing support for the deep-bore tunnel option, coupled with deep concerns that last Thursday's recommendations are inimical to mobility, commerce and quality of life.

A sentiment to "just do something soon" does not alone make for good public policy. Especially not when a region's economy and the usability of a city's downtown waterfront are at stake. The sooner that business and the neighborhoods can be made to feel that their interests are truly being addressed, the sooner a replacement for the Viaduct can actually be built.

UPDATE: The P-I's "Strange Bedfellows" local politics blog reports that the Port of Seattle passed a motion late this afternoon supporting retention of the bored-tunnel alternative.

Advocates of the deep-bored tunnel option to replace the seismically vulnerable Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along downtown Seattle's waterfront, including business and neighborhood interests, rightly stress that the Viaduct serves some 110,000 daily vehicle trips and that the majority of that is "thru" traffic that neither starts nor finishes in downtown. According to p. AWV-5 of this report on the Viaduct, from Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, 60 percent of those 110,000 daily vehicle trips on SR 99 in the project area use the Viaduct as a route through, not to or from, downtown Seattle. This is crucial because if the Viaduct's six total lanes are replaced with surface boulevards including 20-plus traffic signals, plus more transit and an added lane in each direction on the shoulder of Interstate 5 for several miles, Viaduct thru traffic will nonetheless spill onto surface streets and I-5 and worsen congestion severely. More and more so as Puget Sound's population grows by half again in the next 30 years, and total vehicle miles travelled in Washington State rise a projected 54 percent from 2007 to 2030.

Thus the argument, in part, for a deep-bored tunnel which could handle the SR 99 traffic load without obstructing the waterfront like either the envisioned wide, heavily-used boulevards or another elevated viaduct. These are the two options currently recommended for further study.

Some non-governmental advocates of the surface-transit option to replace the Viaduct have been saying that "only 15 percent of the trips are regional trips." This can be misleading if it is understood to refer to SR 99's thru traffic bypassing downtown Seattle, because that is not the case. As this Washington State Department of Transportation document shows (p. 4), 85 percent of person trips through Center City (essentially the downtown Seattle core plus several adjacent neighborhoods) begin or end within a somewhat larger zone known as the "study area," including North and South Seattle. These person trips are on a wide range of streets and roads, on transit and in vehicles, and could be described as more local than regional. Fifteen percent of these person trips don't begin or end in the study area, and are thus considered longer-range, or more regional in nature.

That's all nice to know, and certainly of some use for transportation planning - along with such tidbits as the four percent market-share of scheduled transit for daily trips in the region, last any survey was done (see 2nd paragraph of p. E-6 here). But we're looking at tearing down a crucial portion of a specific state highway that carries 110,000 vehicle trips a day, 60 percent of which are thru traffic bypassing downtown entirely. Sixty percent of 110,000 is 66,000 vehicles a day.

There's a better way. The deep-bored downtown bypass inland tunnel can be built for
$2 billion or less. Nonetheless, to safeguard taxpayers from possible financial risk, a method strongly recommended for greater use by the Washington State Transportation Commission (see p. 9 here) should be employed. This is so-called "alliance contracting," in which highly competitive bidding delivers a stringent agreement between the public sector and a private consortium of contractors, who must perform project design and construction for a set price within a given timeline or suffer reduced payments.

Facility operations and maintenance can also be included in such an agreement, which is then termed a "DBOM" or "design-build-operate-maintain" project. British Columbia has used DBOM or related approaches successfully to control costs on several new infrastructure projects including a new rail line to the Vancouver airport, a tolled bridge across the Fraser River in metro Vancouver, and the rebuilt Sea-To-Sky Highway connecting Vancouver and Whistler.

Cost controls are one thing, capital is another. If additional financing beyond the remaining $1.7 billion in public monies is determined to be necessary to build the deep-bored bypass tunnel on SR 99, then several approaches should be considered. One is formation of a local improvement district (LID) where property owners who benefit from the project can approve a special levy. A similar approach is formation of a transportation benefit district (TBD) in which a $20 per vehicle license tab renewal fee surcharge can be levied without a vote and a higher amount with a public vote. In either case, electronic tolling of the tunnel could be integrated into the finance plan.

Another strategy that is likely to be viewed as daunting but which holds real promise, is investment from public employee union or building trade union pension funds, provided adoption of a north-south corridor tolling plan covering I-5 and SR 99 in Seattle. With respect to additional financing, we should heed the stated intention of the Washington State Investment Board, which manages numerous state employee pension funds, to invest 5 percent of its substantial capital in infrastructure projects. Jurisdictions across the U.S. are beginning to grasp what Europe, Canada and Australia have long realized: in some instances, innovative approaches to infrastructure contracting and financing are essential to getting road and transit projects built on time and on budget, and built sooner rather than later or not at all.

There is every reason for Washington State to take a leadership role here, not only on SR 99, but also urgently needed improvements to SR 520, I-5, SR 167, SR 705, SR 509, and US 2. Whether through LIDs, TBDs or union pension funds - and while deploying cost-control best practices - Washington State can and must move forward on major roadway projects required for public safety and improved mobility.

Cascadia Center commends the Viaduct project team and the state for all their hard work to date, and hopes that the ongoing dialog around further consideration of the deep-bored tunnel proves fruitful.

RELATED: "Port Of Seattle Urges More Study Of Viaduct Tunnel Hybrid," Seattle Times, Dec. 16, 2008.

OK, another hot flash from your (currently) ''All Viaduct All The Time" news channel. Venerable Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly writes for tomorrow's edition (online tonight), "What's Needed Is A Third Option For The Viaduct."

The view here is we are not yet ready to swallow, and could gag on either viaduct option. What's needed is tough, honest analysis of a third option, the combination of a deep-bored tunnel and surface transit. Speed is one factor: Could a tunnel get dug and be open for traffic before demolition of the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct? The city has to avoid, at all costs, the kind of prolonged mess that disrupted and degraded Third Avenue when the bus tunnel was built. The Transportation Department's planners seem to have taken a deep dislike to the deep-bored tunnel option. We've heard sky-high estimates on the cost of going underground.

By contrast, experts consulted by The Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute have filled my e-mail box with analyses that an inland tunnel option would cost $1.7 billion at most. Don't know who's right. We need a analysis by a neutral team of experts.

Our decision-makers should consult Washington's congressional delegation on whether a tunnel replacement of an earthquake-vulnerable viaduct fits President-elect Barack Obama's definition of infrastructure repair. We could have a ready-to-go candidate for federal dollars. All this requires, in Royer-speak, a little more chewing. But, it a) spares us political gridlock in the Legislature; b)helps us steer clear of clawing in the courtrooms; c) potentially gives us a fast through route for freight and auto traffic; and d) ensures us a waterfront that's not an Aurora Avenue-by-the-sea.

Read the whole thing.

RELATED:

"Viaduct A Key Thru Traffic Route: Tunnel Best Replacement," Cascadia Prospectus, Dec. 16, 2008;

"Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement: Keep Tunnel Option Alive," Cascadia Prospectus, Dec. 15, 2008;

"Myth Making In Seattle: Official Estimates Exaggerate Costs Of Tunnel," Cascadia Prospectus, Dec. 10, 2008;

"Don't Fumble Replacement Of Alaskan Way Viaduct," Cascadia Prospectus, Dec. 8, 2008;

"Cascadia-Arup Report: Deep Bore Tunnels @ $200M-$700M Per Mile," Cascadia Prospectus, Nov. 21, 2008.

President-elect Barack Obama Friday is to name retiring Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood the next U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary. Though he has served on the House Transportation Committee, moderate Republican LaHood's upside is his well established role as a bipartisan diplomat with close ties to Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as the Chicago Tribune reports. He'll need to use well the relationships he's built in seven congressional terms. The surface transportation landscape poses big challenges and real opportunities for establishing a new way of doing business. This article about LaHood's appointment, from the New York Times, highlights several important menu items.

Mr. LaHood...has overseen major spending projects as a member of the House Appropriations Committee....The next transportation secretary will face several challenges. One is that the gasoline tax, regarded since the Eisenhower administration as a user fee to pay for building highways, is no longer reliable or sufficient. Gas at $4 a gallon stunted sales and tax revenue, and the Congress had to come to the rescue of the Highway Trust Fund with $8 billion.

With a growing number of hybrid cars, use of tax-exempt ethanol and the possibility of plug-in hybrids, gasoline consumption is becoming disconnected from highway use. When the bill to re-authorize the Transportation Department is considered by Congress in 2009, there will be proposals for a variety of replacement financing methods, including tolls that vary by time of day, possibly using transponders like those now provided by E-ZPass and similar systems. Another open question is the status of rail transportation, both passenger and freight. Many freight lines are now operating at capacity. And Amtrak, strongly backed by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and spoken of favorably by Mr. Obama, needs cash for new equipment.

All along, Cascadia Center has been advocating for time-variable electronic tolling, as well as plug-in electric hybrids and increased inter-city passenger and freight rail capacity, as well as new ways of funding surface transportation. It's going to be an eventful, exciting time. But even with federal stimulus spending on infrastructure, states that are tens of billions short for roads, bridges, and transit, will have to raise the lion's share of funds at the regional level. Against a backdrop of region-wide time-variable electronic tolling on highways and major state routes, that means more and more emphasis on complementary funding tools such as transportation benefit districts, local improvement districts, performance-based "alliance contracting" and investment by public employee union and building trades union pension funds. Over the long term, impetus will grow for a mileage-based tax on vehicles, with discounts for off-peak travel.

In ways yet to be fully determined, Congress must help pave the way for this new era. The gas tax - for which prospects of a large hike are politically nil - will have an increasingly ancillary role in transportation funding. Many key players at the federal level either realize that already, or will soon.

A real consensus is emerging. Last night at the final Stakeholders Advisory Committee meeting on replacement of the earthquake-prone Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along Seattle's downtown waterfront, Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis and a top aide to King County Executive Ron Sims joined the near-unanimous majority in voicing clear support for more detailed study of the deep bore tunnel alternative in combination with surface and transit improvements. Meeting notes here.

To minimize traffic and business disruption, the viaduct would stand until tunnel completion, and tolling the tunnel would close the funding gap. Tunnel boring technology has advanced greatly, as detailed a year ago at a Cascadia Center expert symposium on the topic. The downtown waterfront would be opened up, not blockaded with traffic or another elevated viaduct. Superior life cycle costs and seismic safety are other advantages of a deep bore tunnel. Credit for advancing the emerging compromise solution - still subject to legislative approval and a clear and workable finance plan - is due to all SAC members.

SAC members Vlad Oustimovitch of West Seattle and Tayloe Washburn of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce detail the argument for the "surface-subsurface hybrid" in today's Puget Sound Business Journal. Thanks to the SAC, the project team, and important research from deep bore tunnel experts convened by Cascadia Center, the message of the tunnel's viability is being heard at the highest levels, regionally. Governor Chris Gregoire is examining the tunnel option. She, Mayor Nickels and Executive Sims will make a recommendation to the legislature by mid-January, perhaps by late December, on a Viaduct replacement.

Today, talking to substitute host Frank Shiers on KIRO Radio's Dori Monson Show, Ceis emphasized the tunnel's advantages. Here's the MP3 file of first hour of the show. After Shiers' intro, Ceis leads off, followed by Cascadia Center's Bruce Agnew, a long-time advocate of a tolled bypass tunnel to replace the Viaduct. In today's Seattle Times, Susan Gilmore lays it out:

When the state evaluated eight options for replacing the viaduct, the deep-bore tunnel was the most expensive, at $3.5 billion. But since then questions have arisen about that cost estimate. The Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center, a nonprofit that explores transportation issues in the region, continues to push for a bored-tunnel option - just inland from the Elliott Bay shoreline, which would keep the viaduct in place during construction. The institute has lined up tunneling executives to argue that improvements in technology have made tunnel boring more efficient and that a bored tunnel could be built for much less than the state estimate.

....The Legislature has set aside $2.8 billion for a viaduct replacement. "We're not asking the state to spend one more cent," Washburn said. He said other financing options should be explored, such as regional tolling and a local-improvement district. "This is a 100-year investment, and we've got to get it right. We, the region, need to take ownership with a funding package to pay for the bored tunnel." Washburn said those who would benefit from a viaduct-free waterfront should help pay for a tunnel.

Dave Freiboth, with the King County Labor Council, agreed. "Any notion of going to the Legislature to ask for more than $2.8 billion is in a dream world. That's not in the cards and shouldn't be in the cards," he said. Seattle City Councilwoman Jan Drago said the region is capable of paying for a deep-bore tunnel. The City Council officially supports the surface option, only because the tunnel was considered too expensive. "We have the available tools and authority (to build a tunnel)," Drago said. The region should explore tolling on all area freeways, she said, creating a transportation-benefit district that could collect viaduct-replacement money, a special motor-vehicle excise tax for the tunnel, and a local-improvement district. "I'm very optimistic," Drago said. "What's new here is the region picking up the funding." The state said it will decide by the end of the year which option to select for viaduct replacement. But it's unlikely support for the tunnel option will disappear when that decision is made.

Stay tuned.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire yesterday announced she'd push back by two weeks a recommendation on how to best replace the aging, earthquake-prone Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 along Seattle's downtown waterfront. But there's more. A top Gregoire advisor tells the Seattle Times that the deep bored tunnel proposal - energetically advanced by Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee members plus our Cascadia Center and the general public - is "probably the most viable option." Deep bore tunneling technology has advanced greatly in recent years and the method is considered highly suitable for an inland downtown tunnel away from Seattle's waterfront. (A tunnel boring machine used for Madrid's M30 roadway project is pictured below, right.) The Times:

OLYMPIA - A proposed tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct is making a comeback. A key adviser to Gov. Christine Gregoire said Tuesday that replacing the viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel "is probably the most viable option" - if the numbers pencil out. The comments came after Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels issued a joint statement saying they would miss today's deadline for deciding how to replace the viaduct and needed more time to study the options. They now expect to make a decision sometime in January, according to the Governor's Office. The reason for the delay? "The interest in the tunnel has led us to take some additional time to study it right," said Ron Judd, a senior adviser to the governor and her lead negotiator on the viaduct.....

Judd said transportation planners will be crunching numbers and talking to international tunnel experts to see if a tunnel is feasible now. "I think the governor would say that if we could make the numbers work, that is probably the most viable option," Judd said. "But that option is going to mean that there has to be a real meaningful partnership with the city and county and Port [of Seattle] to make it happen."

Gov. Gregoire's administration, the Washington Department of Transportation, the project team and SAC members are all to be commended for pursuing an optimal solution for the region and the economy which includes a deep-bored, inland, downtown bypass tunnel on SR 99.

A useful template for the detailed discussions which will continue next week is the state's own breakdown of the costs for either a twin-bored or single-bored tunnel. This WSDOT slide briefing presented to the Puget Sound Regional Council, SAC members and other interested parties on Dec. 16 shows:

So, to report that the tunnel is estimated to cost $3.5 billion, or $4.6 billion, leaves out a lot.

The state has $1.3 to $1.7 billion left to spend on Viaduct replacement at present. However, additional funds can be raised from:

The tunnel-only estimates ($1.2 B for double bored and $961M for single bored) can both be paid for within the current budget.

Risk factors can be firmly controlled with a stringent competitive bid process tied to innovative "alliance contracting" recommended by the Washington State Transportation Commission. Under this approach, design and construction can be coordinated by a contractor consortium which is paid in full only if strict performance measures are met, including an accelerated construction schedule and project completion deadline.

In addition, the downward turn in the global economy has resulted in a sharp drop in the cost of construction materials. Contractors are hungrier, as well. This reduces the cost overrun risk, especially if material and labor costs are locked in at something close to current value. Industry-leading professionals could be brought in to manage the project, with pay incentives for cost control.

Discussions in the coming weeks, before the Governor makes a formal proposal to the legislature for Viaduct replacement, are likely to include not only additional funding and financing strategies, but also cost control strategies, refinements of project scope, and a fleshed-out set of next steps. Many or at least some of the "scenario components" could arguably be left out. Even if not, the single-bore version, with the highest assumed level of administrative, design and risk costs, plus all "scenario components," is estimated by WSDOT to cost $2.8 billion, against $1.3 to $1.7 billion in current funds.

As noted above, that gap could absolutely be closed through tolling and a local improvement district, at no added cost to the state. Participants underscored such an approach earlier this month, as reported in The Seattle Times.

The legislature will make the final decision, during a session in which priorities will also include taming the state budget deficit and authorizing time-variable electronic tolling to help pay for replacement of the unsafe SR 520 floating bridge. You could say the stars are aligned.

Excitement over the looming federal stimulus package aside, each of the nation's 50 state governments will be necessarily embracing a "pay as you go" ethic to help ensure high-priority programs and facilities are maintained and built in these trying economic times. In surface transportation especially, the heavy lifting next year and in coming decades will have to be at the regional level.

In terms of congestion management, jobs stimulus, durability, life-span, seismic safety, air quality, and urban design and environmental amenities, the deep bore tunnel option trumps another elevated viaduct or a massive dumping of traffic on surface streets. A full life cycle cost-benefit analysis is the responsible approach.

We've only got one chance. Let's get this one right.

An editorial tonight online at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praises the smart decision by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive to take a harder look at an inland deep bore tunnel to replace the worn out Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in downtown Seattle.

Could this be the Year of the Tunnel for Seattle? An idea that seemed buried could make a decisive comeback. After being left off a list of two final possibilities for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a waterfront tunnel survived the end of 2008. On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels postponed a final decision on a long-term replacement, which they had promised by Dec. 31.

Even on an already-protracted decision-making process, this is a healthy delay. Assuming that a choice can be agreed to within weeks, it's much more important to make a good call than an immediate one. We are glad that Gregoire appears to be looking closely at all the relevant numbers: costs, how to apportion them and how traffic will move....strong arguments for some inclusion of a tunnel option clearly got the governor's attention.

...At this point, a surface-transit option certainly deserves first place. It's the most reasonably priced. Unlike a viaduct and a tunnel, voters haven't rejected a surface plan. But the current tunnel idea, involving deep boring, is quite different from what Seattle voters turned down in early 2007. Gregoire seems to be interested in the advancing technology for boring, which has been used by Sound Transit. Tunnel backers at the well-versed Cascadia Center say costs would be lower than the state estimates.

Tolling and city contributions could help hold down costs. With the economy in the tank, a big state project might be a good idea. Perhaps federal help would be available. Gregoire, Sims and Nickels need to make a good decision based on solid numbers. That will get 2009 off to a good start.

KOMO 4 TV aired a story tonight (user-friendly Flash video link and transcript here) also highlighting the growing momentum for the deep bore inland tunnel option.