Spokane St. Viaduct: Aging Relic Among Modern Highways -- 10 Die In Crashes Since '87

The aging Spokane Street Viaduct, where a mother and her 7-year-old son died in a car-truck crash Tuesday afternoon, is a dinosaur among modern highways and not designed to be part of the high-volume traffic link it is from Interstate 5 to West Seattle.

In fact, the Seattle city engineering office describes the mile-long, 48-year-old viaduct as an inferior roadway that's too narrow, has poor ramps to and from it, and doesn't allow drivers to safely see what's ahead. Counting this week's deaths, 10 lives have been lost in traffic accidents on the viaduct since 1987.

"We need a new roadway," said Brian Patton, the Seattle Engineering Department's director of traffic operations.

Seattle police, following a tip, have questioned the Ferndale driver of a 50-foot tractor-trailer concerning the accident that killed Dawn Elise Tabor and her son, Quinten Hazelwood, said police information officer Vinette Tichi. The driver said he heard an explosion and saw an accident in his mirror but didn't stop because he didn't believe he was involved. He was released after giving a statement.

The old viaduct where the accident occurred is substandard, Patton said.

Traffic engineers concede that the viaduct will continue to be a high-risk roadway for motorists until it can be replaced.

But that will take an estimated $150 million. And it probably will be early in the next century before federal money can be obtained and plans are drawn.

Built in 1945, the roadway wasn't designed to be a major link between Interstate 5, which was only a dream then, and the more-recent West Seattle Bridge. Together, the route is known as the West Seattle Freeway.

About 52,000 vehicles a day travel the viaduct, Patton said. The volume increases to about 72,000 vehicles when it reaches the West Seattle Bridge, which also is fed from the First Avenue South on-ramp and the Alaskan Way Viaduct - Highway 99.

"If we had the money today it would take three to five years" to replace the Spokane Street Viaduct, Patton said, "but I just don't see that money materializing soon."

"It's a critical truck route," he said. "Even though it's a substandard roadway, speeds are very high" because of traffic coming and going from the freeway and the West Seattle Bridge. Speed limits on the viaduct are 35 to 45 mph.

Patton said the city could take some interim safety steps. For example, it could eliminate one eastbound lane to make room for a center barrier, but that would make congestion worse. The Fourth Avenue South off-ramp could be closed and trucks could be banned from the on-ramp there.

But all those steps would affect industry in the area, he said.

"We will be talking closely to the industrial community to come up with the best solution for everybody," Patton said.

Phil Thordarson, Engineering Department traffic statistician, said the only discernible pattern to the 10 fatalities is that several vehicles crossed the center line. Otherwise, they have occurred in dry, wet, foggy, day and night conditions.

Why hasn't the city sought federal highway money to replace the Spokane Street Viaduct sooner?

Other highway needs, including work on the First Avenue South Bridge and construction of the new West Seattle Bridge, were ranked ahead of it, Patton said.

The viaduct took its ninth and 10th victims Tuesday afternoon when Tabor, 28, and her son died. Her westbound car apparently was forced out of its lane and into oncoming traffic by a tractor-trailer, police said.

Tabor died at the scene. Her son died early yesterday in the hospital.

Her 4-year-old daughter, Jene Seal, is in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center with head and other injuries.

A new life had awaited Tabor with her prospect of earning a degree as a medical assistant from Seattle Vocational Institute in August.

Rosalie Etheredge, Tabor's mother, said her daughter, who was divorced, couldn't take her final exams for the medical-assistant's course three weeks ago because she fell and broke a hand.

That was just before Quinten returned from Texas where he had been visiting his father, Lester Hazelwood of Austin. Last weekend, Jene, who lives with her father, Scott Seal in Illinois, came out to visit her mother for the summer, the grandmother said.

Etheredge said her daughter was a native of Austin and had worked as a secretary. She came to Seattle two years ago from Illinois to be near her mother, Etheredge said. "She was hoping to go to work for a medical doctor."

Jene will go back to her father in Illinois after she gets out of the hospital, the grandmother said.

Meanwhile, Etheredge and her husband, Jack Etheredge, were making arrangements for a joint funeral for mother and son in Austin.

Her daughter had no insurance, Etheredge said. "There are no funds to do anything."

She said she herself crossed the viaduct only once, "and I was nervous all the time I was going across."

One of the viaduct's earlier victims was 18-year-old Elizabeth Capilli, a Franklin High School graduate on her way to visit a friend in West Seattle when a car veered across the center line and struck her car head on.

Though she has been dead for more than two years now, her family's pain remains immense. "We are still in great sorrow," said the victim's father, Joe Capilli.

After the accident he and his wife, Josefina, moved from their home in South Seattle because they were so haunted by memories of their daughter. "I long for my daughter," he said yesterday.

Seattle police ask anyone who saw Tuesday's accident to telephone accident-investigation Detective Paul Edwards at 684-8936. People can contribute to the Dawn Tabor and Family Trust Fund at any US Bank branch or by mailing checks to US Bank, P.O. Box 198, Auburn, WA 98071-0198.

- Seattle Times staff reporter Jody Benjamin contributed to this report.