"Boring" Archaeology Along the Buried Historic Seattle Waterfront: Challenges from the Alaska Way Viaduct Replacement Project in Washington State

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Urban Archaeology: Down by the Water" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Seattle waterfront, a formerly industrial landscape that has undergone significant redevelopment over 150 years, has deeply buried former surfaces and historic sites. WSDOT removed a seismically vulnerable viaduct structure and replaced it with a bored tunnel under the historic waterfront and adjacent urban center. Project constraints limited footprints for tunnel portals, staging areas, and access shafts. The challenges of the project are highlighted, including identifying former shorelines and buried beaches under 30’ of fill; the necessity to work in active city streets and around utilities; and the presence of a buried, artificially constructed island that is a Traditional Cultural Property. Besides logistical challenges, including a broken tunnel-boring machine 125’ below ground that had to be repaired, there were management challenges involving how to quantify impacts to the buried TCP, how to monitor deep excavations, and how to monitor vibration and settling for several city blocks of historic buildings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Urban Archaeology: Down by the Water

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 613