Tagged: Alaskan Way viaduct

If you’re waiting for the final chapter in the saga of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement, don’t hold your breath. The latest action by the city council has triggered an effort to put the question to the voters again.

In an often-raucous council chamber packed with both supporters and opponents of the planned deep-bore tunnel project, the City Council decisively overturned Mayor Mike McGinn’s veto of a set of agreements between the city and the state that would facilitate the tunnel.

With the Alaskan Way viaduct scheduled to be demolished in 2016, Seattle area residents are dreaming up possibilities for connecting the waterfront to the city. For decades, the viaduct has largely blocked Elliott Bay, unless you're driving on it or looking out of a high rise building. 

Despite threats of a veto by Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, the city council approved agreements today that make some city departments partners in a plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep bored tunnel. Supporters say making land-use, utility and design commitments to the state moves the controversial project forward. 

The council voted 8-1 in favor of the agreements. Mike O'Brien is the sole councilman who opposed them.

Seattle city council members are pushing ahead with efforts to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep bored tunnel – just as a group of citizens hands in petitions for a public vote on the project. 

The deal is official, but the political fight simmers. The state has put its signature on the contract to build the world's largest deep-bore tunnel, under Seattle's waterfront. It would replace the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct, SR 99. 

The first major street closure in the work to replace Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct happens Monday night.

The state Department of Transportation says it's closing First Avenue South next to Qwest Field from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to allow crews to set up space for the huge construction job.

The deep bore tunnel that will replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct along Seattle's waterfront could be bad news for the century-old Western Building in Pioneer Square.  

The six story building sits on top of fill dirt and rotted pilings, and the Washington Transportation Department says it could settle a few inches during construction.  

You may be drying out from the weekend rain storms. But city officials in Seattle are thinking about snow.  They’re learning lessons from the snowstorm in November that turned roads into ice rinks and made for paralyzing commutes.