THE STATE’S PLAN to replace the crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bore tunnel (total price tag: $4.25 billion) has been as difficult to follow as driving on the elevated highway without imagining it collapsing beneath you. Take Seattle Met’s handy tunnel test to see if you’re smarter than a WSDOT official.
1. Politicians, developers, architects, and lunatics have been proposing ways to improve the Alaskan Way Viaduct for decades. Which idea for dealing with the aging structure has not been proposed in the last 35 years?
A. Turn it into a mall with an attached art museum.
B. Turn it into a parking garage.
C. Convert part of it into a public park.
D. Turn it into a war memorial.
2. In May 1994, a consortium led by former Metro head Neil Peterson proposed an ambitious transportation project that included dropping Mercer Street below street level, constructing tunnels beneath First and Second avenues, burying State Route 99 between Southwest Spokane Street and South Royal Brougham Way underground, and demolishing the Alaskan Way Viaduct to replace it with a tunnel. How much would the whole thing have cost?
3. Serious talks about replacing the viaduct began in February 2001, when the Nisqually earthquake, which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale, damaged sections of the elevated roadway. Since then, portions of the structure have sunk 5½ inches. According to state engineers, how much farther would they have to sink to make the viaduct unsafe?
A. ½ inch
B. 1 inch
C. 3 inches
D. 5 inches
4. In March 2007, nearly 70 percent of King County voters said they opposed the construction of a tunnel to replace the viaduct. City councilman Nick Licata called the advisory vote “worthless” in the eyes of state legislators, but how much did it actually cost the county’s election office to conduct?
A. $100,000
B. $500,000
C. $1 million
D. $10 million
5. Despite the fact that a plan for its replacement didn’t exist yet, Governor Christine Gregoire pledged in January 2008 to tear down the viaduct by 2012. Republican State Senator Cheryl Pflug, who proposed her own tunnel plan in 2007, mocked the governor’s timetable. What did Pflug say will happen before the state begins dismantling the roadway?
6. In 2008, State House Speaker Frank Chopp proposed a towering viaduct replacement that would house roadways, retail, and offices. What did local pols nickname it?
A. The Choppway
B. Chopp Hooey
C. The Great Wall of Chopp
D. A Really Bad Idea
7. On January 13, 2009, Governor Gregoire—along with then-Mayor Greg Nickels, then–King County Executive Ron Sims, and Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani—announced that the viaduct would be replaced with a two-mile-long tunnel. How did they mark the occasion?
A. By lobbing water balloons off the top of the viaduct at tourists on the waterfront.
B. By hanging House Speaker Chopp in effigy in Pike Place Market.
C. By getting soused and skinny dipping in Elliott Bay.
D. By holding a run-of-the-mill press conference in the World Trade Center Seattle.
See the answers on page 4.
Published: November 2010
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