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Comment by civilian | Hacker News Reader

This article is 4 years old, written before the tunnel project started, but it clearly lays out the risks. Not only in building the actual tunnel, but also that the city of Seattle (of which I'm a happy resident) is on the hook for any cost overruns. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/what-could-possibly-go-wr...

Search for the section that starts with "The tunnel-boring machine gets stuck" to read Dominic's assessment of TBM risks.

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ah gawdbless TheStranger (particularly prior to Dominic's curious departure) but the city is-not/will-not be on the hook for costs associated with the tunnel, overrun or otherwise. It's a state route (as a parallel part of state route 99), it's a state project, it was approved on the state level with only the most superficial approval of the city.

Every source I've read about the project says the city is responsible for overruns. The author goes into the exact details of how this is so, even quoting language from the law and how it might be interpreted.

Nevertheless everything written down and filed with the city attorney respectfully belies Dominic and his faithful echo chamber on this particular issue.

Rather obviously this is going to be subject to litigation, and you didn't have to tell me the above for me to know what the city's position will be ^_^!

A $5 billion cost overrun is a decent possibility. That's about $20K for every worker in Seattle.

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