Seattle’s big tunnel project reaches a milestone, but it’s way behind schedule

When the world’s largest drilling machine smashed through a 5-foot-thick concrete barrier, emerging in a cloud of dust from an earthen hole that will become one of the world’s biggest vehicle tunnels, a smattering of cheers floated down from the workers and officials on an observation platform above. One tunnel worker climbed up the machine’s massive drill head and waved a U.S. flag.

But as historic moments go, it wasn’t much of a celebration.

Then again, a band or a parade would have been a jarring incongruity for a 2-mile tunnel project that is four years behind schedule and faces a potential $400 million in cost overruns.

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FOR THE RECORD

May 2, 10:35 p.m.: A project to bore a tunnel under Seattle and construct an underground roadway is $60 million over budget, not $400 million as reported; the contractor is seeking more than $400 million for repair of the boring machine. The project was approved by the Washington Legislature, not by voters, and overall cost is $3.2 billion, not $3.3 billion. The story said tolls were once projected at $1 to $1.25; that was a recommendation by a citizens committee. The state Transportation Commission will determine the tolls. Also, the story may have given the impression that construction of the tunnel roadway has not started, but it is under way.

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Eight years after the Highway 99 tunnel got a thumbs up from then-Gov. Chris Gregoire, and six years after Washington voters approved it over other proposals to replace the earthquake-weakened Alaskan Way Viaduct on Seattle’s waterfront, the debate continues over the tunnel’s cost and effectiveness.

Many preferred rebuilding or replacing the viaduct, which carries 110,000 vehicles daily, while others said it would be quicker and less expensive to go with a cut-and-cover tunnel — excavating, rather than tunneling, along the waterfront.

Still others insisted the solution was to tear down the ailing viaduct, opened in 1953 and damaged by a 2001 earthquake, and replace it with a revamped surface-street traffic system, bolstered by expanded public transportation. The $3.3-billion project does not include a public transportation component.

“That’s always been my complaint,” said Jeff Reifman, a city activist and tech consultant who monitors public projects. He lives just off Aurora Avenue, a stretch of Highway 99 that runs through north Seattle not far from the tunnel’s north portal.

“Where I live, [transit] service is poor, no real new transit is planned,” he said. “The tunnel won’t make a difference.”

Gov. Jay Inslee says the project, despite delays and growing costs, is nonetheless going to be completed. He called the need to take down the viaduct, which suffered structural damage and is sinking by a quarter- to half-inch annually, “a race against the next earthquake.” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray prefers to look forward, calling the end of the dig “a transformative moment” for Seattle.

Laura Newborn, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the work of private contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners, says the agency is hearing encouraging words from the public.

“There was a tremendous interest in the breakthrough,” Newborn said, referring to the tunneling completion April 4 — coincidentally, the 64th anniversary of the opening of the viaduct.

It helps that divided Seattleites found something to like in the $80-million, 326-feet-long tunnel boring machine, known as Bertha. The nickname honors Bertha Landes, Seattle’s first and only female mayor (1926-28).

Like a character in a sci-fi flick, the massive drill was also followed through the gloomy tunnel by a Bertha Cam, viewable on the Web, and the state gave the machine a Twitter feed, @BerthaDigsSR99. To her 21,700 followers, Bertha was anything but boring.

The drill was manufactured by Hitachi Zosen Corp. in Japan, shipped in pieces to Seattle in 2013 and assembled in the tunnel launch pit. It was soon stalled by mechanical problems for two years, requiring crews to dig down to Bertha’s cutter head for lengthy repairs. Digging resumed in 2015.

In a continuing court fight, the state and the contractor are blaming each other for the delay and overruns. Now, after burrowing from the city’s historic Pioneer Square district to the high-tech campuses of South Lake Union, Bertha is being cut up into 20-ton pieces in a disassembly pit to be recycled or discarded.

Though some saw the tunnel breakthrough as the near-end of the project, there’s considerably more to be done. Newborn said the project comprises 32 components; the tunnel is the largest job, and a double-deck highway is yet to be built within. Once the tunnel and other elements are complete in 2019, the viaduct demolition will begin.

Officials can’t say yet what the final tab will be, and they are still trying to make the project pencil out. The tunnel, almost 58 feet in diameter — the height of a five-story building — will provide four lanes of traffic on two levels. But there will be no exits to downtown Seattle, as the overhead viaduct provides, and a toll is needed to help pay for the project.

Once projected at $1 to $1.25, the tunnel toll will probably consist of four rates, according to a new analysis provided by state transportation planners: $1 daytime, $1.50 for evening off-peak hours, $1.75 for morning rush hour and $2.50 evening rush hour. That’s for two miles.

Workers celebrate the breakthrough by a massive drilling machine, nicknamed Bertha, for an double-deck, underground roadway in Seattle.

(Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)

The state expects the increased toll to raise more than $1 billion over 30 years, which will be used to pay off tunnel construction debt.

Critics have long argued that tolling and lack of exits are impediments to the tunnel’s purpose: replacing the viaduct and limiting downtown gridlock. To avoid tolls, or get downtown, motorists are expected to take alternative routes off 99 and onto surface streets or Interstate 5. That could lower toll revenue and jam streets even further.

“Spending $3 billion on a cars-only viaduct replacement is a huge mistake,” Reifman said. “The future is public transit. The fact that no one wants to pay to use the tunnel is not unexpected. But it is sadly laughable.”

If the tunnel opens for traffic as planned, the viaduct will be replaced by parks and a scenic roadway, visually reconnecting the city to Elliott Bay and Puget Sound, the ferry terminal and tourist businesses along a series of waterfront piers.

Assuming, that is, the schedule is not shaken up by another quake. Experts have said there is a 1-in-20 chance of that within the next five or so years. As Greg Nickels, a former mayor, said, “These days, I find myself driving a little faster each time I use the viaduct. You never know.”

Anderson is a special correspondent.

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