SR 99 tunnel tops list of biggest highway ‘boondoggles’
Sep 18, 2014, 1:32 PM | Updated: Sep 19, 2014, 9:16 am
Seattle’s beleaguered tunnel project has earned a dubious new distinction atop a list of 11 “highway boondoggles” that shouldn’t be built in a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
The report, titled “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” calls the SR 99 tunnel and a number of other billion dollar highway mega-projects across the country a waste of money because Americans are driving far less than they used to.
“We’re still spending billions of dollars and these projects just don’t make sense anymore,” said study co-author Phineas Baxandall in an interview Thursday.
The report criticizes the decision to build the deep bore tunnel rather than opting for a less expensive surface street and transit hybrid.
“If the tunnel is ever finished, and if a proposal to charge tolls on the tunnel goes through, the project will have spent billions of taxpayer dollars to attract fewer drivers than are using the existing roadways right now,” Baxandall said.
The report underscores the Washington State Department of Transportation’s own statistics showing the tunnel would likely increase traffic downtown and at best reduce traffic delays by just 1 percent.
“And those delays could have been further reduced with the hybrid plan of transit of surface streets,” he said.
As the tunnel drilling machine “Bertha” remains stalled on the estimated $3.1 billion project, Baxandall encourages local officials to reconsider the tunnel and explore other alternatives. But he acknowledges that’s highly unlikely.
“The old decision made certain assumptions about increasing driving that just don’t hold anymore,” he said.
Despite the report, Baxandall insists the organization is not anti-car or pushing a transit-first agenda.
“People certainly need to get around and the car is going to be the backbone of how people get around for quite a long time,” he said. “We don’t want to see a situation we have now, where there’s 60,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country yet there’s these boondoggles being built. We want the money to be spent in the best way possible.”
