Oh No! Not ANOTHER Study!

Share

By By Ken Schram

Summary

We're about to waste time and money on yet another study of Interstate 605.

Story Published: May 1, 2002 at 1:38 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 12:40 AM PDT

Oh No! Not ANOTHER Study!
SEATTLE - Well, here we go again.

Another study.

ANOTHER futile swipe at ANOTHER idea of how to do away with gridlock.

Only this study's been studied on an off for the past 30 years.

Interstate 605 is back, like a Krispy Kreme donut at a Jenny Craig convention.

Bounced around since the late 60s and early 70s, the idea is to build a mammoth highway in East King County. It'd run North and South, supposedly easing congestion on I-5 and 405.

The last serious look at this was back in 1998, when the state legislature spent $500,000 to study a modified version of 605. It ended up as just more of our money simply flushed down the commode.

Now, the Legislative Transportation Committee has its hot little hand on our wallets to do ANOTHER study.

Hell, I think Sound Transit floated this idea just to make it look like what it's doing is actually reasonable!

By the way, did I mention the estimated cost for a 605 freeway?

That'd be $100 billion - B.C.O. (Before Cost Overruns). Want to see what that figure looks like in numerical form?

$100,000,000,000

Kind of takes your breath away, huh?

So, let's see: $2 billion for 14 miles of light rail; $2 billion more for a dozen miles of monorail; $16 billion for a new viaduct and some repairs to 405; $2 -- maybe $3 billion dollars for a new 520 bridge.

But hey, who's counting!?

Certainly not the dolts who don't want us to believe that Interstate 605 is just one more study on the road to ruin.

Want to share your thoughts with Ken Schram? You can e-mail him at kenschram@komo4news.com