Thanks as always for signing and sharing.

The request for proposal has been issued by WSDOT to three firms who will receive a stipend to develop a proposal.

WSDOT included $25 million to mitigate neighborhood impacts. This is unfortunately a very small portion of the project cost which is pushing past $900 million.

This article in the Seattle Times is worth a look. A group is challenging the Transportation Bill that funds SR 520. One of the concerns is that individual projects do not receive close legislative scrutiny because so many projects are in one all inclusive bill. https://replica.seattletimes.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=b9257992-dfe2-4b85-abd8-b6c0ab17a385

Details of the lawsuit can be found at https://citizenactiondefense.org/citizen-action-defense-fund-initiates-taxpayer-challenge-to-unconstitutional-state-transportation-package/

We sent the following note to the citizen Action Defense fund and encourage everyone who agrees to support this legal effort.

Hi Jackson
 
I am writing on behalf of a group of residents who live close to the SR 520 project viaduct replacement project across Portage Bay.
 
We believe that your lawsuit direction may be consistent with the concerns in our petition. We believe that if the SR 520 project received individual project attention from legislators it would be built in a lower cost way with lower environmental impact. We hope you can review our petition at https://www.change.org/Build520Faster
 
Our group has identified $200 million in savings and dramatically reduced vibration and traffic impacts on the neighborhood if the Portage Bay portion of the SR 520 project is constructed using marine equipment. We have received 660 signatures in support.
 
It appears to us that WSDOT made a decision to use temporary work bridges instead of marine equipment over a decade ago before they developed complete information on the Bay sediment character or depth. WSDOT has refused to revisit their decision even when presented with objective engineering, cost, and environmental information that shows their decision results in high costs and impacts. We believe that if lawmakers had given this project individual scrutiny it would be built using marine equipment. 
 
We hope that your lawsuit is successful and that it results in cost savings and an objective rethink of the approach to reconstruction of the SR 520 viaduct and other transportation projects in Washington State.
 
Please let us know if there is any way we can assist your effort.
Thanks
Carl Stixrood