Instead of spending $3 billion on a Transbay Terminal
that will do nothing to reduce traffic congestion
its time to spend it on something that WILL drastically reduce
Traffic Congestion and air-pollution - the
19th Avenue Tunnel Bypass. |
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Nineteenth Avenue and Park Presidio Boulevard was originally to have
been bypassed by a Freeway (planned many years ago).
This Tunnel far outweighs any Terminal as a solution to Traffic
Congestion for Bay Area commuters
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"The
cost-benefit ratio
of the Transbay Terminal is really absurd,"
said Bill
Blackwell, a retired Bechtel architect, who contends that the new
terminal costs aren't justified by the improvements for transit riders.
"People seem to think we need a new monument,"
Blackwell
said. "We don't need a fancy new terminal.
It doesn't do
anything to enhance transit use."
A big reason for continued skepticism is the
Transbay's $3 billion price tag. To raise the bulk of the money, backers
relied on voters to approve several large transportation measures.
The regional ballot measure to
boost bridge tolls, steers $150 million toward the project. Another
$270 million came
when San Franciscans renewed their city's
half-cent sales tax in November 2003. A
statewide
high-speed rail bond was dropped
from the November 2004 election, if successful, would have contributed
$127 million.
The biggest piece of the financial puzzle is
the $500
million that the city hopes to steer toward the terminal through
redevelopment of the blocks around it. To raise the money, the city is
crafting a plan that could allow the highest residential towers in the
city: one 55-story structure at Main and Howard streets and another at
First and Folsom. There would be four other residential towers at least
300 feet tall along Main and Folsom.
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Tunneling Technology Improvements
- "The
technique of building underground structures has made considerable
progress in recent years. Construction has become less difficult
and costs increasingly better controlled.
-
Significant improvements have been made with regard to
pollution, thus highly simplifying usual ventilation problems.
- The safety
level of urban tunnels is higher than on most surface urban roads.
- The
construction of surface and even more so elevated road structures is
meeting in a number of countries with increasing opposition in urban
areas, involving high extra costs or making it impossible to
implement the proposed solutions.
- Finally, the
emergence of the concept of tunnels reserved for light vehicles
makes it possible to consider building road tunnels in places where
this would previously have been physically impossible, while at the
same time considerably reducing costs for comparable capacities.
- All these
reasons lead to the idea that in a number of urban places only
road tunnels will be able to cope with capacity increase
requirements and alleviate surface road traffic, or clear
obstacles, and that they are therefore set to significantly develop
in forthcoming years."
1st World
Conference on Urban Road Tunnels
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World Road Association, PIARC
Technical Reports on Tunnels
- Cross Section Design of Bidirectional Road Tunnels
- Cross Section Geometry in Uni-directionnal Tunnels
- Pollution by Nitrogen Dioxide in Road Tunnels
- Road Tunnels: reduction of Operating Costs
- Fire and Smoke Control in Road Tunnels
- Road Safety in Tunnels
- Road Tunnels: Emissions, Environment, Ventilation
- Classification of Tunnels, Existing Guidelines and Experiences,
Recommendations
- The First Road Tunnel - A Planner Guide for Countries Without
Previous Experience of New Road Tunnels
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Major US Road Tunnel Projects -
- Paris Berlin Copenhagen
others ....
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Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel, MASSACHUSETTS
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Port of Miami Tunnel Project, FLORIDA
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Wolf Creek Pass Tunnel, COLORADO
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Devil's Slide Tunnel, CALIFORNIA
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Gowanus Expressway, NEW YORK
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3rd Hampton Roads Crossing, VIRGINIA
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LBJ Corridor Study, TEXAS
-
Hartsfield/Atlanta International Airport Tunnel, GEORGIA
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Drumanard Tunnel, KENTUCKY
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RTE 9A – Lower Manhattan Tunnel, NEW YORK
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Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel, MASSACHUSETTS
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Whittier Tunnel,
ALASKA
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Wolf Creek Pass Tunnel, COLORADO
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Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Tunnel, MISSOURI
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