Seattle is hemmed in by mountains. Everything heavy that comes from the rest of the country has to climb over the Cascades, and the main crossings are slow, steep, and shut down repeatedly through the winter. The I-90 corridor over Snoqualmie Pass closes around 29 times a winter, and a single multi-day closure has been measured at tens of millions of dollars in lost output. That is a permanent tax on a region that has to import most of what it builds with.
The Trump Tunnels are a proposed pair of flat-grade mega-bore tunnels through the Cascade Range, turning that chokepoint into a weatherproof, closure-free link for freight and transit. The model is Switzerland's Gotthard Base Tunnel, the longest in the world, which carries hundreds of freight and passenger trains a day under the Alps. A flat trans-Cascade bore would do the same thing for the Pacific Northwest.
It is also the supply line behind the material standard. Dimensional stone, brick, steel, cement, and aggregate are dense, low-value-per-ton freight, exactly the cargo the mountain crossing punishes most. A reliable flat corridor lowers the delivered cost and the schedule risk of every heavy building material that has to reach Seattle. The standard says build with durable materials. The tunnel is part of how the durable materials get here affordably.
This initiative is in development. Sign up to follow it, and tell us if you want to help, whether you are an engineer, a contractor, a freight or transit operator, an investor, or a resident who is tired of the pass shutting down.
The Standard Seattle Forgot - the material standard the tunnel is built to supply.
Building the Supply - the plan to manufacture lime, pozzolan, and terra cotta regionally.