The “Bertha boondoggle” just can’t catch a break — at least not when it comes to jokes about its long-spanning delays.
Delays have become inevitable when it comes to the mile-long Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel project. Even the imminent lawsuits over cost overruns are on hold until the project is complete — whenever that will actually be.
The state filed a lawsuit against Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP), the project contractor, on Oct. 9, after STP brought the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) into a lawsuit brought by STP’s insurers in New York against STP. But the state is requesting King County Superior Court postpone hearing its case until the tunnel project is finished, so as to not impact current construction — and find out how much more the costs will escalate.
The tunnel project was to be finished by the end of this year; instead, its completion has been pushed back until March 2018, because of “unforeseen” steel pipes in the way that may have caused the subsequent breakdown of “Bertha,” the $80 million drilling machine in December 2013.
STP won’t even start work again on the actual tunneling portion until Nov. 23, when Bertha will presumably be repaired and up and running and just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
With lawsuits looming at the literal and metaphorical end of the tunnel, WSDOT, STP and their insurers aren’t holding back on assigning responsibility for existing cost overruns. All taxpayers want to know is that they’re not paying any more for this project — a pipe dream that is highly unlikely, considering the estimated hundreds of millions over-budget the tunnel project will be once it’s completed.
The atmosphere surrounding this project certainly can’t foster cooperation or even loyalty among the players. Two high-profile WSDOT employees have left or are leaving the project to pursue work with other projects that are actually doing work, such as Sound Transit.
A three-person Expert Review Panel, which provided project oversight to the state Legislature, was dismissed in July, upon legal advice that the panel would put the state and taxpayers more at financial risk with cost overruns.
Unfortunately, based on the tunnel project’s short but prolific history of problems and delays, this isn’t the last we’ve heard of “Bertha boondoggle” jokes. There is still a lot of material to mine in the remaining nine-tenths of the tunnel for poor Bertha to dig.