Proposed Seattle Bored Tunnel Underground Simulation (2010)

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6 points·curtis··2 comments

This project is a mess. The boring has stopped until 2015 due to damage done to the drill and the cost has been steadily increasing. You can read more at http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024187017_berthadela.... Turns out that boring large tunnels under cities is never straightforward.

The fact that there's been a setback does not mean that the project has turned into a disaster. In a really big, multi-year project things can go wrong, they can be dealt with, and the project can be completed successfully.

In the case of stuck tunnel boring machines, a good example is the second St. Clair Tunnel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clair_Tunnel). The Seattle Times has a good article about the problems encountered with the St. Clair Tunnel and how that relates to the Seattle Deep Bore tunnel: "Canada’s tunnel saga offers lessons on Bertha fix" (http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022905964_berthasarn...).

The conclusion of the article nicely sums things up:

> Arguments over costs in Sarnia dragged on until 2008, when the Supreme Court of Canada decided who must pay $36 million for repairs and delays — the CN Railway’s insurers.

> By then, double-stacked trains had been using the tunnel between Canada and the U.S. nearly 14 years, and the seven-month delay was long forgotten.

> Until now.

Now maybe other things will go wrong, and the project really will be a fiasco. But I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.

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