By Lynn Peterson

What a summer.

Wildfires, flash floods, tornados. Our state has faced no shortage of unplanned challenges recently. In addition to causing more serious repercussions, these challenges strain our transportation system, particularly when they hit during a busy season of planned construction closures. Add it all up and you end up with a predictable outcome: delays and frustration for travelers trying to reach their destination.

New SR 99 at Broad Street

Today, as scheduled, we wrapped up a four-day closure of State Route 99 in Seattle that included two rare weekday closures of the highway. Before the closure started, we asked you to do your part to help. We suggested you plan ahead, change your travel mode or revise your commute, among other measures aimed at reducing congestion. As you did during major lane reductions on I-90 last month, you delivered. Traffic was more challenging than usual, but we expected that. And had you not heeded our suggestions, things would have been much, much worse.

Progress

Of course when you’re sitting in traffic, it’s easy to forget that the headaches we’re enduring have tangible benefits. In the case of the four-day SR 99 closure, we came away with plenty to show.

Most notably, crews building the future north portal of the SR 99 tunnel demolished and replaced the section of SR 99 that crosses above Broad Street in Seattle. It looks easy in this time-lapse video, but completing this work and reopening the highway in four days was no small feat. 

During the weekend portion of the closure, crews replaced 81 concrete panels on SR 99 south of downtown, repaired an expansion joint at the Seneca Street off-ramp from northbound SR 99 and cleared ivy from the Alaskan Way Viaduct to make future maintenance of the structure easier.

With more than 18,000 miles of highway under our care, we’re always getting ready for the next big push. There will be more closures, more travel challenges. But please be assured that we spend a significant amount of time and energy coordinating our work in advance, and doing everything we can to minimize delays for the traveling public.

When the next big closure approaches, we’ll again ask for your help. Let me say in advance, on behalf of your fellow travelers, thank you. Your help, and your patience, benefit everyone as we work together to maintain and improve our state’s transportation system.

By Chad Schuster

In October 2011, we closed State Route 99 through Seattle for more than a week so we could demolish and replace the southern mile of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Traffic was a challenge during the closure, but with help from flexible and patient commuters, we made it through and ended up with a better highway to show for it.

On Friday night, we’ll begin another extended closure of SR 99, this time a four-day closure that will enable crews to demolish and replace (pdf 2.5 mb) a section of the highway at the north end of downtown. As it did three years ago, we expect that closing SR 99 will cause congestion and perhaps frustration among travelers trying to get to and through Seattle. But with your help, we’ll manage, and we’ll complete important work related to our efforts to replace the remaining section of the viaduct.
 
Please plan ahead for SR 99 closures from Friday night, Aug. 22 to Wednesday morning, Aug. 27. Here are the details:

• From 10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, Aug. 25, SR 99 will be closed in both directions from the West Seattle Bridge to Valley Street.
  • Northbound SR 99 will be open from South Royal Brougham Way and southbound SR 99 will be open from Columbia Street until midnight on Friday, Aug. 22 for exiting Seahawks traffic.
• From 5 a.m. Monday, Aug. 25 to 5 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, SR 99 will be closed in both directions from the south end of the Battery Street Tunnel to Valley Street.

Lots of work to do

• Utility work at Harrison Street
• Concrete panel replacement in SODO
• Expansion joint repairs on the viaduct near the Seneca Street off-ramp
• Ivy removal from the viaduct

Driver tips 

• Allow plenty of extra travel time.
• Leave early or delay your trip to avoid traveling during peak commute periods in the morning and afternoon.
• Delay or reschedule discretionary trips.
• Consider telecommuting.
• Take King County Metro and plan for reroutes on buses that use SR 99, share a ride in a car or vanpool, or walk or ride a bicycle.
• If you must drive, know before you go and use WSDOT's travel tools or visit SDOT’s travelers information page.

Thanks in advance for your patience, and for doing your part to minimize congestion as we build a better SR 99 corridor.

Keeping the Alaskan Way Viaduct safely open to traffic during SR 99 tunnel construction is a top priority. It’s one of the main reasons we’re boring a tunnel – to minimize disruption at the surface as we replace the viaduct.

Recent media reports have stated that ground settlement due to tunnel construction could cause us to close the viaduct. These reports are inaccurate.

The viaduct is still vulnerable to earthquakes, but it remains safe for everyday use. The viaduct settled as a result of the Nisqually earthquake and we strengthened the viaduct in those areas so it remains safe for drivers.

We have no plans to close the viaduct until after the tunnel opens to traffic. Crews inspect the structure four times per year – the next inspection is scheduled for this weekend – and have taken a number of steps to protect it during construction.

We anticipated some ground settlement would occur during construction of the tunnel, which is taking place near the viaduct. That is why the viaduct has been strengthened in this area and more than 100 monitors have been installed on the viaduct to measure how much the ground beneath the structure moves.

Those monitors told us that the viaduct settled up to four-tenths of an inch at one location along the viaduct near where tunnel construction is underway. This settlement is well within the limits established by WSDOT’s structural engineers.

We will continue to carefully monitor the viaduct during construction and will take additional steps to reinforce the viaduct if needed.

We’ll be posting additional details soon about the work we’ve done to protect the viaduct. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us if you have questions or concerns.

Learn more about the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program.

 by guest blogger Natalie Graves

The SR 99 Tunneling Machine (Bertha) in the launch pit.

The power is on, the cutterhead is hooked up and two miles of Seattle soil await the teeth of Bertha, the world’s largest tunneling machine. Aside from running final tests, there’s only one thing left to do before the massive machine’s launch beneath downtown Seattle later this month: say goodbye.

On July 20, Gov. Jay Inslee, WSDOT and Seattle Tunnel Partners will host a public celebration at Bertha’s launch site, west of CenturyLink Field, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Following the brief dedication ceremony at 11:30 a.m., attendees can walk the construction site, talk with project staff, learn about the tunneling operation and view Bertha from one of the walkways that span her 80-foot-deep launch pit. This is your chance to meet Bertha face-to-cutterhead-face.

It isn’t the first time WSDOT has hosted a “come one, come all” event along Seattle’s waterfront. In 2011, WSDOT closed the Alaskan Way Viaduct to demolish the southern mile, and hosted a final walk on the viaduct that attracted more than 3,000 attendees. WSDOT and the SR 99 tunnel contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners are prepping the construction site for visitors and Bertha is ready to meet her fans. The event includes activities designed to teach kids about science and engineering and provides the opportunity for attendees to sign their names on one of the concrete segments that will form the tunnel’s walls. To add a little flavor to the day, food trucks will also be on-site.

The celebration is one for the history books, so don’t miss out. Tunneling starts at the end of July after final testing is complete and we won’t see Bertha again until she emerges near South Lake Union in approximately 14 months. For more important information, such as directions to the event site and restrictions, visit the program’s website.

by guest blogger Chad Schuster

At first glance, the curvy temporary stretch of State Route 99 that opened last fall to the west of Seattle’s stadiums seems like an unusual path for a highway to take. Certainly it’s not the straightest point between two lines. But viewed in a broader context – keeping the highway open during SR 99 tunnel construction – it’s most certainly the right path. It saves everyone in the long run by maintaining a vital route to and through downtown Seattle as we continue replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Fittingly, the path to completion of that circuitous section of highway, and the permanent section immediately to its south, was unconventional. Yes, we always weigh risks and look for opportunities to save time and money. But this time our vigilance resulted in big changes – most notably swapping an underpass for an overpass at the eleventh hour – made with an eye toward big savings. The history behind that decision is a complicated one. The result is not: We replaced the southern mile of the Alaskan Way Viaduct one year early and under budget. And our last-minute design changes saved more than $50 million.

Of course, making big changes complicated an already challenging project. We knew that we would have to make minor adjustments along the way, and even re-do work in some cases. But the cost of those minor re-dos was well worth it given the overall cost savings and the safety benefit of removing half of the seismically vulnerable viaduct. Here’s the brief history of how it all went down.

• The contract to build the viaduct’s south-end replacement went to bid in early 2010.
• Our original construction budget for this project was $152.6 million, plus an additional $38 million to manage construction, and minimize risk and impacts to the public. Altogether, the total budget for the project was $190 million. 
• An important component of the contract was an underpass that would allow drivers to bypass a busy train track that crosses South Atlantic Street, near the entrance to the Port of Seattle’s busiest freight terminal.
• As contractors prepared bids, a value engineering study of the program yielded the potential for major savings if we changed from the underpass to an overpass.
• Recognizing the value, and being confident in our ability to deliver the project while minimizing impacts to the public, we chose to make the switch. We removed the underpass from the contract and told bidders the overpass would be put out to bid later in a separate contract. We remained in close contact with interested bidders to ensure they understood the changes as they prepared their bids.
• Skanska USA Civil was announced as the low-bidder on the main south-end project in May 2010. Thanks to a highly competitive bidding climate, their bid of $114.6 million was 25 percent under our construction estimate. As a result of the low bid, the overall project budget was adjusted from $190 million to $152 million.
• Skanska completed their work in September 2012, one year early, at a final construction cost of $121 million. A portion of the additional cost was due to changes that were made necessary by the switch to an overcrossing. Add in the risk and construction management costs and you end up with $150 million – $2 million less than our adjusted budget. 
• In May 2012, the overcrossing contract was awarded to Atkinson Construction for $29.4 million, $6.2 million under our estimate. The estimated cost for building the underpass was $90 million.
• All contracts associated with the viaduct’s south-end replacement are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013, as originally planned.

What all of this really adds up to is this: our job is to deliver transportation projects safely, on time and on budget, while minimizing impacts to the public. With the viaduct’s south-end replacement, we did that and more. It just so happened the best way there was the road less traveled. 

By guest blogger Greg Phipps

In summer 2010 contractor crews working for WSDOT started work to replace the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct south of Downtown Seattle. Two years later the seismically vulnerable viaduct is gone and drivers are traveling on a brand new, seismically-strong State Route 99 from SODO to Pioneer Square. This section of SR 99 won’t be truly complete until it connects to the SR 99 tunnel at the end of 2015. Still, it’s pretty cool to see how replacing the southern mile of the viaduct has changed the landscape south of downtown.

The southern mile
Our first photo shows the southern mile of the viaduct in May 2010, before crews started building the new SR 99. Besides the viaduct, keep an eye on a couple things that will change. The first thing is Alaskan Way South, the street on the west side of the viaduct. The second thing is the railroad tracks between the viaduct and Alaskan Way South.















The southern mile in September 2011
One year ago crews were close to finishing the western half of the new SR 99, the piece that would eventually become the southbound lanes of the highway. What happened to Alaskan Way South? Part of it is in the footprint of the new SR 99 bridge, while the rest has become a construction zone. And the railroad tracks? They’ve moved west, out of the way of the new highway.

Southern mile demolition – October 2011
Just one month later and the viaduct is a shell of its former self, literally. Demolition machines are hammering and crunching the double-deck viaduct into piles of concrete and rebar rubble.  In a little more than a week most of the southern mile has disappeared. Meanwhile, crews are getting ready to open the western half of the new highway and the construction bypass that takes traffic from the new highway up to the remaining section of the viaduct north of South King Street.
















The new Highway 99 - September 2012
It’s 11 months after the southern mile demolition and we’ve got twins!  Bridges, that is.  Southbound traffic rides on the west bridge and northbound traffic uses the east bridge, until they meet again and travel on a construction bypass around SR 99 tunnel construction.  On the photo trace a line from the end of the east bridge through the tunnel construction zone toward the blue cranes on the bottom right. That’s your route into the tunnel starting at the end of 2015.

Giant blue cranes and drill rigs at the SR 99 tunnel boring machine launch pit site.

By guest blogger Chad Schuster

They stand in clusters, a half-dozen or so of them, 170-foot towers of steel in a large field of dirt to the west of Seattle’s stadiums. From the sky they look like giant robots chatting it up, or preparing for battle, maybe. Whatever they’re doing, you can tell it’s big. Really big.

"They’re a little bit like trailblazers," said Matt Preedy, WSDOT’s deputy administrator for the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program, of the giant blue cranes and drill rigs at work on the SR 99 Tunnel Project. "Their job is to prepare a path for the tunnel boring machine."

This being a tunnel, that path ultimately leads underground. But before the boring begins, crews must first build a launch pit – the task currently being undertaken by the cranes and drill rigs – where the machine will begin tunneling next year. Significant work also must occur in the ground alongside the tunnel route, which is why the tunneling operation, mammoth machines included, is set to begin a slow march north toward the ferry terminal before stopping just south of Yesler Way.

To make room, crews today rerouted six blocks of waterfront traffic from Alaskan Way to a newly improved road beneath the Alaskan Way Viaduct. For visitors to the waterfront, that means big changes to traffic, parking and ferry access starting today and lasting through at least early 2014. For fans of extreme engineering, it means the show is about to begin.

"These cranes and drill rigs are amazing, but they’re really just the machines behind the machine," Preedy said.

The machine is the project’s 57.5 foot diameter tunnel boring machine, the world’s largest. Currently being manufactured in Japan, the machine is scheduled to arrive next spring and begin its northward journey by the middle of 2013. Its departure point? You guessed it – the dirt field currently occupied by the blue machines.

Right now the machines are drilling concrete piles 100 feet into the ground to form the walls of the launch pit. Excavation of the pit will begin this summer. Crews are also busy relocating utilities and reinforcing a two-block section of the viaduct near Yesler Way, above the path of the future tunnel.

If all of that sounds complicated, you’re right.

"Tunneling is complicated business," Preedy said. "Coordination is key because crews have to deal with so many moving parts. We have a lot of exciting work to do before we turn the keys on the tunnel boring machine."

Fortunately you don’t have to be an engineer to enjoy the spectacle.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime project," Preedy said. "People really should come down and see it for themselves."

Note: Visitors to the waterfront can learn more about the SR 99 Tunnel Project and the nearby Pioneer Square neighborhood by visiting Milepost 31, WSDOT’s information center at 211 First Ave. S.

by guest blogger Noel Brady

This chunk of the Viaduct showed up on Ebay

Turns out there’s more than one way to recycle a 60-year-old viaduct.

When we razed the southern portion of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in late October, several shrewd spectators turned to eBay to recycle their pieces of Seattle history into cold hard cash. One chunk of concrete went for at least $16.50, minus shipping.

WSDOT and viaduct contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) saw opportunity in recycling too; they turned viaduct rubble into cold hard building materials. Our transportation engineer Amjad Omar said nearly 100 percent of the old concrete and rebar from this portion of the viaduct in Seattle will be recycled and reused.

From October’s demolition alone – about 25 percent of the total viaduct structure – crews hauled 3,500 truckloads of concrete rubble to Terminal 25. There, the concrete was crushed to be reused for the new SR 99 Tunnel that will replace the viaduct, and the rebar is being prepared for transfer to a local recycler.

Not only does recycling save us on the cost of materials, but it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions from hauling rumble to a far-off disposal site, producing new materials and hauling it to the work site. Recycling old bridges and other transportation structure is nothing new for us. Last spring we recycled 100 percent of the NE 12th Street Bridge that spanned I-405 in Bellevue.

The state does not require recycling in bridge demolition, but it is becoming the norm as the market for recycled materials grows. Our engineers routinely write construction specifications to ease the future recycling of materials.

By guest blogger KaDeena Yerkan

This week a small group of WSDOT and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) officials gathered in a conference room in downtown Seattle to watch something that will change the course of history in Seattle.

With little more fanfare than snapping a few photographs, FHWA’s Washington Division Administrator Dan Mathis, signed the SR 99 Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project’s Record of Decision. While the document has a long and bureaucratic title, its intent is clear. It means that we have successfully completed 10 years of environmental review and can now focus on final design and construction of the new SR 99 tunnel beneath downtown Seattle.

Dan Mathis, FHWA’s Washington division administrator, preparing to sign the SR 99 Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project’s Record of Decision with Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond.

So, what is a record of decision? In a nutshell, it’s federal approval of a project’s environmental review, and it describes the project the agencies have decided to build. A record of decision also includes any mitigation measures and commitments the project will need to implement. For the SR 99 tunnel, this list includes monitoring buildings and utilities during tunnel boring, replacing lost parking during construction and keeping neighbors and the public informed throughout the project.

The signed document set in motion a flurry of activities to get tunnel construction started. One of the first things we did was give our tunnel contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners, the official notice to proceed with final design and construction. Seattle Tunnel Partners, along with boring machine manufacturer Hitachi Zosen, will begin work this fall.  When it opens in late 2015, the 1.7-mile-long tunnel will whisk traffic between Seattle’s SODO and South Lake Union neighborhoods.

Once open, the tunnel will also allow us to remove the final stretch of double-deck viaduct along Seattle’s downtown waterfront. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is vulnerable to collapse in a severe earthquake, which is why we’ve been working so diligently to make its replacement a reality. A project to replace nearly half of the viaduct with a new above-ground roadway is already under way south of downtown and is designed to eventually connect to the tunnel.

 
By guest blogger Hilary Bingman

Driving south along the SR 99 Alaskan Way Viaduct, you may have noticed a lot of really big things in our construction zone: gigantic cranes, towering columns, huge machinery, and colossal trucks. These are the tools needed to build sections of the new bridge that will replace the viaduct’s south end. On May 19, something even bigger arrived and was added to this gargantuan list – “super” girders.

For a quick lesson in Bridge Building 101, girders are simply support beams used to support the roadway of a bridge. They serve as the heavy duty backbone connecting the bridge columns and form the base underneath the new roadway you’ll soon be driving on.

Girders vary in length, depending on the amount of space between the columns. The smallest girders we use are about the length of an articulated bus – the double-length ones that bend in the middle.  However, several of the girders we’re using to replace the south end of the Alaskan Way Viaduct are the largest ever produced in Washington state. Weighing in at 127 tons a piece, these “super” girders stretch to a length of 205 feet.  That’s as long as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Each “super” girder is custom manufactured in Tacoma and transported on a truck specially-designed to hold the weight.  Due to their size, the girders must be transported to the construction area and set into place during the middle of the night to avoid shutting down major downtown routes. Once the girders arrive on site, crews use two cranes to set them on top of the new bridge column.

The girders will span the intersection of S. Atlantic Street and Alaskan Way S. and the railroad tail track, near the entrance of the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 46. This intersection sees a lot of activity – including freight trucks, trains, commuters, bikes and pedestrians.  Using “super” girders to span the intersection avoids placing new columns where they may affect traffic flow through the intersection.

We’re proud of our “super” girders. On the viaduct, they make all the difference.

For more information on the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement program, visit www.alaskanwayviaduct.org.

Headline, Alaskan Way Viaduct fire, Seattle, December 4, 1975 Courtesy The Seattle Times

by guest blogger Chad Schuster

Immersed in music and late-night chatter, folks dancing at "Shelly's Leg" on Dec. 4, 1975 might not have heard screeching tires on wet pavement, or the impact of the gasoline tanker hitting a guardrail on the Alaskan Way Viaduct some 40 feet above the popular disco's doorstep. But there's no mistaking what they saw in the moments following the crash.

"We were inside Shelly's dancing when I looked out a window and saw this huge ball of flames coming at us," 23-year-old Alice Drake told the Seattle Times.
When the fireball arrived, the windows shattered. The music stopped. Security guards blocked the front entrance and began ushering patrons out a side door and into the rainy night.

"Everybody started panicking and running," Drake said.

Despite the panic – and heat that was intense enough to knock out power to downtown and send chunks of the viaduct tumbling to the street below – none of the 150 people in the disco that night were hurt. Neither was the driver of the truck, 40-year-old Richard Leroy Baker.

In fact no one – save for the eye irritation of two firefighters – was injured in the fire, which took 45 minutes to extinguish. Even the viaduct itself remained mostly unscathed, reopening to traffic the next morning after a brief closure that allowed crews to make minor repairs and do a safety inspection.

More than 35 years later, Shelly's Leg is gone, and the viaduct's days are numbered. But they remain inextricably linked, a history forgotten to most except for longtime Seattleites and local history buffs.

Which is why we're pleased to unveil a new website that celebrates the viaduct and its place in state and local history. Launched on March 2, the site lets users dig into the structure's – and Seattle's – past. Along with facts, figures and photos of the viaduct, it features a timeline of culturally and geologically significant events, information about local archaeology, details about historical buildings near the viaduct, and games and activities for kids.

We worked with local historians, cultural resources experts and state and local agencies as we developed the site, which fulfills a commitment WSDOT made to the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. We also linked to Washington state historical website historylink.org, in case visitors want to explore something they see in further detail.

The site launch comes only two weeks after we demolished the first piece of the viaduct, and a little over a year before we take down the structure's southern mile.

Are we excited to demolish the viaduct? You bet. It's old and seismically vulnerable. It needs to be replaced.

But we also recognize its unique place in history. And so we're excited to pay tribute to the viaduct's concrete and steel, and to the people – the engineers who dreamed it, the construction workers who built it, the drivers who use it, and the folks burning down the house that night at Shelly's Leg – who gave the structure its story.

Update 3/08/11: The Alaskan Way Viaduct history website has been temporarily removed. This site was developed by the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to comply with an agreement related to the National Historic Preservation Act. A party to this agreement has requested time to provide feedback on the website. We will restore the site shortly.

For more information about the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Program, visit www.alaskanwayviaduct.org