In January 2008, state leaders wanted a $2.8 billion elevated highway, which would have offered more lanes than a tunnel. But the desire to replace it continued for decades, and that conversation intensified in 2001 after the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually Earthquake caused irreparable damage. The viaduct officially opened on April 4, 1953, and was completed in 1966 with eight ramps and two underpasses. Those calls echoed similar suggestions from 19. Federal funding and a traffic study in 1947 helped make the viaduct and what became Interstate 5 a reality, though even then there were calls for a tunnel instead of the viaduct. An elevated roadway was first suggested in 1910. Perhaps no road in Seattle was more debated than the Alaskan Way Viaduct and its potential replacement. By November 2019, tolls are in place, the last viaduct piece is down, and the tunnel is part of Seattle's daily commute. A month after the tunnel opens, it averages more than 70,000 daily weekday trips, with nearly 500,000 vehicles passing through it weekly. The $3.374 billion project is completed after years of delays, cost overruns, and concerns about the potential for damage from a major earthquake, heightened by a 2009 simulation showing how the viaduct could collapse in a 7.0 magnitude quake. The 1.7-mile route under downtown Seattle is North America's largest bored tunnel, stretching from the South Lake Union neighborhood at its north portal to the Sodo neighborhood at its south end. on Monday, February 4, 2019, the State Route 99 tunnel replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct opens to traffic.
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