Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/debate-rages-over-raised-highway-in-seattle Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript After the bridge collapse in Minnesota, the debate over what to do with the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an aging raised highway in Seattle, has gotten even more intense. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour Correspondent: In the wake of the Minnesota bridge disaster, cities and states are eying their aging roadways. But in Seattle, it didn't take a disaster to make residents aware of their road problem: 110,000 cars per day whiz along the Seattle waterfront on a two-mile-long, double-decker waterfront bridge, the Alaskan Way Viaduct.Built in the 1950s and damaged by an earthquake in 2001, engineers say it could collapse in the next quake. Some repairs have been made, but on the federal bridge sufficiency scale, the viaduct has a rating of only nine out of 100. The Minnesota bridge had a much better rating of 50.The underside of the Seattle road has cracks, exposed rebar, and weakening concrete. Even before the Minnesota disaster, Washington state said it would spend $5 million this year and $175 million next year to patch up some spots, but it said the only real solution is to replace the viaduct. That could take 10 years.Now, many in Seattle think the state must move faster. City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck. PETER STEINBRUECK, Seattle City Council: When I saw the images of the Minnesota bridge collapsing within seconds into the water, I thought of the viaduct collapsing and thousands of people potentially losing their lives, getting sandwiched between the double decks of the freeway here and, frankly, surprised that that was not seen as a wakeup call. LEE HOCHBERG: The city and state say they're already doing all they can, but Steinbrueck says the state should immediately move to get some traffic off the viaduct. PETER STEINBRUECK: To do nothing is to put people at greater risk. What we need to do is start to take the traffic off of the facility now. What are we waiting for? LEE HOCHBERG: Even before the Minnesota tragedy, Steinbrueck was wary of the viaduct. Instead of replacing a road that carries one-quarter of Seattle's north-south traffic, he had what seems like a radical idea: demolish it, and don't replace it at all. PETER STEINBRUECK: You get an idea that we've got to simply replace this aging structure with another, more massive public works project. But there are more sensible, more cost-effective approaches than thinking in those terms of mega-project terms.