A Greener Viaduct?
Okay, so there’s been a million posts about the viaduct in the past few months. But I was walking home from the waterfront the other day and I couldn’t help but admire the ivy growing up the viaduct columns near the Seattle Aquarium. It got me thinking…
First a little background: Can you believe it’s been 6 years, 2 months and 10 days since the 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake. That’s 2,262 days.
Engineering studies have shown that 25 more seconds of rattling and the Alaskan Way Viaduct likely would have collapsed. And on the DOT’s website they announce there is a 5% chance the structure could fail in the next 10 years.
So, what have we accomplished toward finding a solution in those 2,262 days? Absolutely nothing of course. And all the while 110,000 vehicles use the roadway each day. I’m glad to know our political “leaders” value safety so highly. What a joke.
So let’s be realistic, we’re obviously not going to have a solution for at least another 10 years. Everyone keeps blowing hot air about how important it is to make Seattle a “world-class city” and “reconnect us to the waterfront”, by “tearing this wall down”. Funny how we don’t hear anything being mentioned about safety in those catchy little statements. So do we actually think the problem is just that the viaduct is ugly?
Well if that’s the case, instead of blowing $5 billion on a tunnel, I’ve got a cost-effective solution.
Let’s just grow ivy all over the viaduct. A little pressure washing, a little paint, maybe some quaint streetlights with some colorful banners that simply say “Metronatural!” wouldn’t hurt either. But if you’re down on the waterfront near Pier 59 I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised if you look up and observe the ivy scaling up the concrete columns. Just picture it everywhere! It could be Seattle’s trademark. Space Needle. Coffee. Ivy-Covered Viaduct.
Maybe then people (Greg Nickels) might stop complaining about how big and ugly the structure is and actually start to focus on the issues that really matter. You know, little issues like public safety.
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I have a horrible feeling that this is what’s going to happen in the end, coupled with a few extra bolts and clamps in the hope of making the structure [look?] stronger.
I don’t think you’re being quite fair in portraying the debate as all about aesthetics and nothing to do with public safety. Public safety is the reason why something has to be done about the viaduct, and there’s no argument about that - everything else is really a secondary argument about what that something should be. Aesthetics really only come into the viaduct vs tunnel argument - the more fundamental one is the entirely practical matter of whether we need that highway capacity at all.
Ivy is a noxious weed in King County, you know. It’s illegal to plant it.
Heh. It somehow seems appropriate to cover the viaduct in a noxious weed.
We could use moss.
You know if we had those flying cars we were promised back in the ’50’s this wouldn’t even be a problem. I wants me some flying cars dammit!
the viaduct can become Seattle’s High Line!
The mention of moss gives me an idea: since Seattleites can never agree on what to do with the viaduct, its likely fate is to slowly decay over the years. An earthquake might topple some of the columns, but others will remain. As we continue to argue about how to properly tear a broken viaduct down, it will slowly be retaken by nature.
Moss will cover the columns and dandelions and horsetail weeds will insert themselves in the cracks. Invasive blackberries will cover the old road surface, providing habitat for rodents and adventurous vagabonds. Seeds from fir trees will eventually find a niche among the weeds, slowly transforming concrete into a new urban forest along the waterfront.
Three hundred years from now, the viaduct will remain as a ruin of our time, eternally demonstrating the inaction and stupidity endemic to our way of life.
I think their impotent harping over the viaduct is meant in some part to cover up their failings w/r/t public safety.