SDOT Gives Gates Foundation a Car-Full Tunnel Realignment

I apologize for the stress I've put on the pun in the headline, but it's nothing like the stress, apparently, that the Gates Foundation put Seattle's Department of Transportation. Back in May, we were all made aware of the Foundation's discontent with how Sixth Avenue North fed cars to the deep-bore tunnel's north portal.

SDOT illustration

Currently, Sixth Avenue North does not cross Mercer Street. It bends along Broad Street between Harrison and Republican, and for a full block--Republican to Mercer--it doesn't exist before it snaps back to the grid north of Mercer.

SDOT initially planned to reinvent Sixth as a feeder to the tunnel southbound.

The northwest corner of the Gates Foundation campus being in the way, it would have tunneled underneath at a gradual grade (4.5 percent) and thus allowed cars from Mercer or downtown easy tunnel access.

The Gates Foundation, who are putting a building right there, made noises about millions of dollars in mitigation, and this has resulted in the street grid gaining startling curvilinear properties around the political gravity well that is the Foundation's campus.

SDOT illustration

A few things happen with the curveball option: the grade increases to six percent, a "half signal" allows Sixth Avenue drivers access to westbound Mercer (but not westbound Mercer to Sixth), and pedestrians have to cross Mercer at Taylor or go up and over via Aurora.

(The full signal in the earlier "from below it onramps" option let westbound Mercer traffic turn left on Sixth Avenue North.)

This is the kind of accommodation from SDOT that most private citizens can only dream of, and it's not likely to make hickorystick at Redstate any more well-disposed to what he calls the tunnel's servicing of "Billionaires' Row." (The tunnel's north portal fetching up around Mercer means its neighbors are the Gates Foundation and Paul Allen's Vulcan developments.)

SDOT is now pushing the curved option, reports Queen Anne View, and they would love it if you agreed. They say costs will be lower, for one thing, although I don't know if that's because a surface street is less expensive than a tunnel, or because only this option comes without Gates Foundation lawsuits. To put a good face on a fait accompli, "SDOT will host an open house on the Mercer project on September 21 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Seattle Center’s Lopez Room." If you have an interest in futile gestures, by all means, mark your calendar.