Quote:
Originally Posted by zilfondel
The Alaskan Way viaduct tunnel was already, at 52 feet in diameter, the largest bored tunnel ever constructed on earth. It ran into a myriad number of problems not the least of which was that the thing broke down partially due to its size and required 2 1/2 billion dollars to dig it out just so they can re-launch it. Building an even larger tunnel is not only completely unnecessary for a city Portlands size to have the largest tunnel in the world, but would introduce major risk in such a project and would also drain Oregon‘s transportation budget for the next 50 years at the state level and possibly even federal matching dollars.
And as much as I hate sitting in traffic when I occasionally have to drive to Hillsboro, I don’t think spending billions of dollars for a roadway tunnel of a mile and a half under downtown Portland is the best use of funds… Particularly when you know it’s going to be tolled a significant amount, it’s not gonna serve nearly as many people as a train line could. A highway tunnel under downtown Portland will essentially be a gold plated roadway for wealthy commuters.
Maybe get The Boring Compamy to build a privately funded hyper loop for you.
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If the city and state ever get to the point to wanting to do a serious tunnel route under the downtown, I would hope it would be for underground light rail.