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The viaduct, which takes its name from Alaskan Way, the surface street it runs next to for much of its length, was completed on April 4, 1953, with capacity for 65,000 vehicles per day. Its route follows that of previously existing railroad lines. Heavy commercial and commuter use means that the viaduct has a strong economic impact throughout the Greater Puget Sound region.
After the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 destroyed (with considerable loss of life) a similarly designed structure that was part of Interstate 880Interstate 880 is a regional bypass interstate highway in the Bay Area metropolitan area of Northern California. For most of that distance, it runs parallel to the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay, where it is called the Nimitz Freeway after World in Oakland, CaliforniaOakland founded in 1852, is a city on the east side (aka East Bay) of San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. To its north is Berkeley, home to the famous university campus ( University of California, Berkeley). To its west is San F, some Seattleites came to doubt the viaduct's structural integrity. Those concerns were magnified after the 2001 Nisqually EarthquakeThe Nisqually Earthquake occurred on February 28, 2001, and was one of the largest recorded earthquakes in Washington state history. The quake measured 6. 8 on the Richter Scale and was centered about 17 km northeast of Olympia at a depth of 52km. Most of, which damaged the viaduct and its supporting Alaskan Way SeawallThe Alaskan Way Seawall is a seawall which runs for 7,000 feet along the Elliott Bay waterfront southwest of downtown Seattle from Bay Street to S. Washington Street. It was built to provide level access to Seattle's piers and supports the Alaskan Way Via and required the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to invest $3.5 million in emergency repairs.
Experts give a 1-in-20 chance that the viaduct could be shut down by an earthquakeAn earthquake is a trembling or shaking movement of the Earth's surface. Earthquakes typically result from the movement of faults, quasi-planar zones of deformation within its uppermost layers. The word earthquake is also widely used to indicate the sourc within the next decade. Since the Nisqually Earthquake, semi-annual inspections have kept the viaduct open, but have also discovered settlement damage that continues to worsen.
Replacing the viaduct and seawall has become a necessary but contentious political issue in Seattle. Most concerned parties acknowledge that the viaduct must be torn down, but there is as yet no consensus about what to replace it with. Money is the major concern: Seattle's budget in the early 2000s is stretched thin because of unemployment, the loss of BoeingThe Boeing Company ( NYSE:BA) is a leading American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with its largest production facilities near Seattle, Washington. It is also a defense contractor. It is listed on the New York Sto jobs and the lingering effects of the dot-com crash. Replacement options under consideration range in cost from $2.5 billion to $4.1 billion and could take up to 11 years to complete.
Five replacement alternatives were identified by Seattle, the WSDOT, and the Federal Highway Administration in an official environmental impact statementAn environmental impact statement (EIS) is an examination of the effects on the environment that will occur if a particular action is taken. The purpose of the EIS requirement is to ensure that decision-makers consider environmental impacts before decidin:
Many residents liked the idea of a tunnel, arguing that it would open up Seattle's waterfront to more scenic views. They believed that the viaduct itself is an unattractive blight on the city that cuts off easy access to the waterfront. Other residents argued, however, that the views from the viaduct itself are worth preserving.
On September 7, 2004, WSDOT announced that the alternatives had been narrowed down to two:
As of yet, little money is available to fund this project, aside from $177 million included in a gas tax increase passed by the Washington State Legislature in 2003. Mayor Greg Nickels is attempting to get the U.S. federal government to contribute $1 billion. Other funding options have not yet been determined.