Alaska
Way Viaduct Replacement with a
The text of this document is an accurate copy
of what was filed by the initiative
proponent with the Secretary of State for assignment
of a serial number. The accuracy of code in
amendatory sections has not been verified.
INITIATIVE
XXX
Number 964 now assigned by Secretary of States Office
I, Sam Reed, Secretary of State of the State of
custodian of its seal hereby certify that,
according to the records on
file in my office, the attached copy of Initiative
Measure No. XXX to
the People is a true and correct copy as it was
received by this
office.
An act forcing the building of “The Third Option Alaska Way Viaduct Replacement
Plan including a Floating Highway” or The Elliott Bay Floating Highway Project.
AN ACT
Relating to all funding by state Government related to replacement or improving
(except maintenance to last five years) any appurtenances that are a part of
the present Alaska Way Viaduct and it’s associated vehicular transportation
system; deleting RCW XX.XXX.XXX; amending RCW XX.XXX.XXX, XX.XXX.XXX, and
XX.XXX.XX; adding a new section to chapter XX.XXX RCW; adding new sections to
chapter XXX.XX RCW; creating new sections; and providing an effective date(s).
These deletions, amendments, and additions resulting in concentration of all
such future expenditures along with additional appropriations from the general
fund as necessary on efforts immediately after the effective date of this act
resulting in The Washington State Department of Transportation or their time of
the essence contracted consultants meeting requirements of National and as
amended by Washington State Environmental Protection Acts, Washington State
Shorelines Management Act, and Public Law 405 (regarding navigable waters and
as related to small amounts of rights of way from The Port of
Seattle)conformance and hearings simultaneously preparing to retain main
consultants within one year of effective date for preparation of engineering
PS&E, (plans specifications and estimate) to all the same standards that
applied to the Hood Canal Bridge and utilizing as much of the same details as
possible from the Hood Canal Bridge, to be completed within the next year,
allowing the next ten months for
construction contract letting, and the next three years for construction of
some two parallel five and some ten lane floating bridge style structure(s)
about one mile out in Elliot Bay from the North Tip of Harbor Island (on west
edge of East Waterway) to Battery Street Tunnel & Wall Street and include
restrictions on The Governor of Washington State, The Washington State
Department of Transportation, The City of Seattle, and The Port of Seattle to do
otherwise per attached map. All to be completed within five years after
effective date of this act with higher priority than any other major new
Washington State Department of Transportation project. Generally referred to as
“The Third Alaska Way Viaduct
Replacement Plan including a Floating Highway” or Elliott Bay Floating Highway
Project.
Above has been since revised by Code Revisers Office. Law would be changed to have DOT study this option and report to Governor within one year. Please Search on
“
to
find revised info on Secretary of State’s Web easily. Note they misspelled
Elliot with one t instead of two.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF
INTENT
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. Washington
State Government has spent a lot of money and other resources investigating
options as relate to this act.. The people have clearly and consistently
illustrated their ongoing and passionate desire to ensure that state wide
taxpayers are protected but also realize that all state residents have interest
that the problems related to these expenditures result in the best possible
solution for the most local and statewide taxpaying users of the thru Seattle
US-99 transportation system along with it’s impact on Interstate I-5 or other
users and visitors to the waterfront area as possible. The people find that
even without raising taxes, the government consistently receives revenue growth
many times higher than the rate of inflation every year. With this measure, the
people intend to protect taxpayers by creating as immediate a stop as possible
to further expenditures for studies of any other option except that as outlined
hereafter and herein as Option Three. Hopefully wider agreement in support of
this act will result before state government takes more of the people's money
for studies of the two current proposals under consideration that have no consensus.
THE ABOVE
TO BE REVISED ( Mostly shortened and with RCW numbers included) BY CODE
REVISERS AND ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICES
Above has been since revised by Code Revisers Office. Law would be changed to require DOT to study this option and report to Governor within one year. Please Search on
“
to find revised info on
Secretary of State’s Web easily. Note they misspelled Elliot with one t instead
of two. Attorney General’s Office has provided
FOLLOWING
INFORMATION WILL NOT APPEAR ON THE INITIATIVE SIGNATURE FORMS OR BALLOT
WHEREAS:
Option
Three; Have two parallel 5 lane floating structure(s)
about one mile out in Elliot Bay instead of a Alaska Way Viaduct, Depressed
Roads, or Tunnel which would be a lot cheaper per lane to and faster to build and less painful
for all state citizens while being built. THEREBY COMPLETING SYSTEM SO PRESENT
TRAFFIC CONGESTION ON I-5 AND MANY DOWNTOWN STREETS FINISHED AS
CONTEMPLATED AND PLANNED FOR IN 1961. Origin & destination studies
even then indicated a minimum of ten lanes required for local traffic to be
provided outside interstate system by
Forty six years ago there was a meeting with Bill Bugge PE, Dir WSHD;
Squeege Glaze (Sp?),WS Dir Hiway Planning Dept.; George Andrews PE, at that
time WSHD Dist 7 (Seattle Freeway) Engineer, Ed Johnson PE, Office Manager
HNT&B, A couple of gentlemen from The City of Seattle Planning
& Engineering Depts. & Bernie Hoskins of Pacific NW Bell Planning and
Kingsley Hall (in charge of all research of existing & PS&E preparation
of all utilities relocations between Seneca St & Connecticut St Interchange
i.e. I-90) to discuss details of locating ramps @ interchanges to
provide ties between principle local then present and future North-South non
thru traffic facilities. At that time The Interstate Highway was mandated
by law not to be designed nor was it funded to handle local traffic and of
course every metropolitan area argued for more ramps etc. which upset the
freeways intended purposes especially as a defense system for moving missiles
around during a all out Cold war turned Hot. All present agreed we needed
5 more thru downtown lanes with no more room within I-5 R/W. The delegates
from
Reasons for advocating another look at this 46 year old never really investigated idea are;
a) Seismic
end product concerns of building another elevated North South structure when
already the downtown section of I-5 has four parallel 3,000 foot
long elevated longitudinal structures.(just uphill from King County &
Seattle City Hall buildings.) With
b) There
are those people throughout the world that are striving to improve
utilization of municipal waterfronts and associated views The Seattle waterfront with
it's streetcars, piers and public markets are among
c) Washington State DOT says 110,000 vehicles per day presently using the AWV But, more interesting perhaps; Most Freeway or Expressway Design manuals for traffic analysis assume a lane of traffic at a design speed of 60-65 mph can carry 2,980 cars per lane per hour.(directly proportional to design speed) Lets round that to 3,000 max DHV (daily hour volume) then present 5 lanes carries about 15,000 cars per hour during peak. If you remove the AWV during construction of either a depressed, tunnel, or elevated structure a loss of 15,000 cars North-South capacity is about 5/17ths (Downtown I-5 12 lanes wide + or - ) That's too close to half for a reasonable thing to have happen for several years. Proponents of a tunnel say construction start in 2010 and take ten years to complete. Replacing elevated structure start 2010 and take seven years to complete It will take until 2010 to relocate all the utilities necessary for the tunnel and almost as long for the replaced elevated structure.
e) Building
a elevated seismic event resistant (everyday there's a little shaking
going on) structure requires a lot of good aggregates (gravel) for high strength
concrete. When you dig a hole in your backyard for a swimming pool or septic
tank you run into the water table just a few feet down. After you get it built
and are enjoying it you decide to pump it out for some reason you might be
surprised when the pool or tank floats up out of the ground like a boat. Parts
of I-5 have concrete over 7 feet thick as ballast to keep it from floating up
out of the ground (there's a reason Spring St is so named and the transit
tunnel so expensive. Because of urban development all around
f) Note how
quickly PS&E (Plans, Specifications & Estimate by engineers) and
construction completed on the actual floating part of floating structures like
g) Famous rule of thumb on Public Works projects. Don't try to relocate a railroad line. Note the one right alongside & under the existing AWV. Not to be confused with streetcar track. And they certainly are essential to the piers in our port.
h) In the future if you need more parallel lanes over the water you build them without having to acquire more rights of way over land except maybe at the ends. That is sure to happen. Ferry terminal expansion could be on West side of Floating structure w/added parking. This would be impossible where ferry terminal is now. Floating helicopter pad to airport to get really futuristic
i) Anchoring such a structure would probably be easier than a floating bridge between shores as floating roads as extensions of streets could be built that would act in compression or tension to help hold the structure in place.
j) In
addition to “slide in opening pontoon assemblies” the center section of the
long floating structure and each of the two street extensions would have
to have non opening medium rise openings for pleasure craft. These could be
four standard pontoons with steel or concrete over channel bridges but with
pontoon continued under them with thru cable compression thru and under the
channel with top deep enough for shallow draft pleasure craft. Note that some
places within the breakwater produced by the floating highway could
be developed as an additional marina the rents from which could be used to
help fund maintenance etc
That
portion of the curved south end of the main floating bridge structure within
the North end of Harbor Island (thence thru the East Waterway) would be
floating within a just a few feet wider sheet pile canal (requiring tidal ramps
for SW Florida and 11th) and
the portion thru the East Waterway would consist in part of one of the five
“slide in opening pontoon assemblies” which are exact copies of the same
devices as used on the Hood Canal Bridge. Thence typical land to floating bridge structures. If fundable
structures should be built to go up and over Marginal Way, US-99, and railroad yard tracks and on to
k) Back to (a) above. It’s believed it's easier to replace one or more standardized sections of a floating structure than a structure on land in case of terrorist sabotage or seismic event ecause not so much debris in the way. One or more of which could be stored somewhere secretly
I) A large
part of the floating structure could be built in The State of Washington. The
State of
m) Note energy required for ventilation or 24/7 bright adaptive lighting as would be required for tunnel
n) NOTE: MAY BE ALMOST CRIMINAL NOT TO CONSIDER EVENTUAL IMPACT OF MAJOR EARTHQUAKE ON SEATTLE
In event of existing four 3,000 foot long I-5 longitudinal structures (N Bound, N Bound Collector Distributor, S Bound, S Bound Collector Distributor)(above City Hall & KC Courthouse)and Alaska Way proposed or existing Alaska Way elevated or tunnel structure collapse the only North-South Seattle City Streets crossing Yesler Way (This is the narrowest constriction of the hourglass figure of Seattle between Lake Washington and Elliott Bay) are;
Second Avenue South
Combine to 4th at
ABOVE ONLY STREETS LEFT THRU HOUR GLASS
Due to the
flexibility of floating structures because they are already designed to
withstand tidal, large ship 30 foot bow waves (such as ships going to
o) It was assumed in 1961 that a minimum of a additional five for a total of ten lanes other than I-5 was necessary for local traffic either at Alaska Way, Thompson Expressway (Proposed through arboretum which was dropped) Or floating. There is not any other place except over or under water within the hour glass for enough Rights of way to accomplish this
NOTE: ONE
FLAW IN THIS IS CONSTRICTION THRU
IT IS
ABSURD TO REPLACE A INADEQUATE STRUCTURE WITH ANOTHER INADEQUATE OR EVEN LESS
ADEQUATE STRUCTURE WHICH FORCES A INTERSTATE HIGHWAY TO ATTEMPT TO FUNCTION IN
A MANNER IT WAS NEVER INTENDED. The failure of the City of
The
previous proposed elevated structure will not have over six thru lanes Latest
tunnel plan only four lanes.
PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION WILL NEVER SOLVE THE NEED FOR AT LEAST A REASONABLE HIGHWAY
SYSTEM
Three
thru N-S streets and a maximum additional six lane replaced elevated highway to serve the local population of
the greater
NOW THEREFORE THE FOLLOWING CODE
REVISIONS:
THIS AREA WILL BE COMPLETED BY CODE
REVISORS AND POSTED HERE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE
SEE MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATE
ALIGNMENT
Third
See http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/Alternatives.htm for cost of other two alternates
This should not cost more than 4 or 5 times
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal_Bridge
Thanks to