Seattle Viaduct Project Could Define City Development

"From an engineering standpoint, it is absurd to compare Seattle's proposed cut-and-cover tunnel to Boston's Big Dig. The Boston project, writes Dan McNichol, its former deputy director of public affairs, in his book The Big Dig, 'is the largest and most complex urban infrastructure project ever undertaken in the modern world. It is bigger in scale than the Panama Canal or Hoover Dam and more complex in its planning, engineering, and construction than the two combined.'"

"Boston's Big Dig is eight miles long with 121 lane miles, 80 of which are in a tunnel. Seattle's full project 'corridor' would begin in the north on Aurora Avenue North at the intersection of Ward Streetâ€"four blocks north of Mercer Street on the eastern slope of Queen Anne Hillâ€"and would run south to a point on Highway 99 three blocks south of Qwest Field."