Future
Originally intended as a bypass to I-5 through Seattle, I-405 has experienced a large increase in traffic volume since its construction. I-405 is now the most congested freeway in Washington State, particularly the segment between State Route 169 and I-90.
Currently underway is the Nickel Project, which in 2003 originally included three planned improvements for I-405:
- The construction of one lane in each direction between SE 8th and I-90, replacing the Wilburton Tunnel.
- The construction of one northbound lane from NE 70th to NE 124th, and one southbound lane from SR 522 to SR 520.
- The construction of one northbound lane from SR 181 to SR 167, and one southbound lane from SR 169 to SR 167.
In 2005, the "Renton to Bellevue Project" was added as part of the Nickel Project, and would have added two lanes in each direction between SR 169 and I-90. However, in November 2007, voters rejected the ballot measure which would have provided the additional funds necessary for this project. At this time the project is still largely unfunded. The web site "Road to Ruin" ranks the widening of I-405 as the fourth most wasteful highway project in the United States. The project is designed to help traffic move smoother on I-405.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 405 (Washington)
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.”
—Pierre Simon De Laplace (1749–1827)