Smart traffic lights and live streaming cameras

The Alaskan Way Viaduct closes tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 21) for nine days. To help motorists get around during the construction work, the city of Seattle's Department of Transportation is trying two new innovations: live streaming traffic cameras and technology that not only senses traffic conditions, but automatically adjusts red lights to move things along.

This is an important innovation that other cities – and the state – should look at. Building new highways and bridges is incredibly expensive, both on the state and local level.

Because our state is growing, we need to keep working to serve more citizens trying to get to work or the grocery store – and businesses getting goods to market.

Yet building new highways and bridges is incredibly expensive. New technology and innovations like this, on the other hand, are relatively cheap solutions.

Here's a recent news story from KING 5 on the new live streaming cameras.

Click here for more information on the Viaduct project.

Who will it be? Bored tunnel contract winner to be announced today

Update 1:34 p.m.: The Seattle Tunnel Partners team was announced as the “apparent successful bidder.” The bid is $1.09 billion.

Hammond spoke highly of both teams, saying, “Both of them went above and beyond,” what was asked for in the original bid criteria. Officials reviewed over 6,000 pages of documents over the past few months as they evaluated the proposals. WSDOT officials, Gov. Gregoire, Rep. Judy Clibborn, and elected city and county officials were on hand for the announcement.

What’s next? Bidders can protest the awarding of the technical credits for the next nine days. The contract will be awarded in January, and execution will begin in February.

Earlier today:

Cue the drum roll—this afternoon we’ll find out which team wins the contract to build the bored-tunnel viaduct replacement in Seattle. Last May the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) issued a request for proposals, leading to two project teams submitting plans in October. The two bids will be revealed publicly at 1 p.m. at an event in Seattle’s Union Station. Elected officials, transportation staff and stakeholder groups are expected to attend.

As already announced, both teams’ bids are within the contract’s price limit so evaluators have spent the past few months looking at how each proposal most efficiently meets the project’s overall goals and minimizes distractions to the community. “After an in-depth review, we will award the contract to the team that has complied with our requirements and has the best-value proposal,” said WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond in October.

The contract, expected to be valued at $1 billion to $1.2 billion, is known as “design-build,” which combines the project design and construction responsibilities into one entity that assumes most of the financial risk. We will update this post later today with the final decision, so stay tuned.

(Photo courtesy of WSDOT)