The former Battery Street Tunnel in Seattle, WA, a tunnel that was once of of the busiest arteries in Seattle has been "filled to the grates" with concrete as one of the final pieces in the years-long project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct gets checked off the list.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced that crews competed filling the old Highway 99 tunnel in late September.
The tunnel used to connect SR-99 between Aurora Ave. North and the viaduct, but once the new waterfront tunnel opened and the viaduct began coming down, crews used the tunnel to store the recycled concrete. They just recently filled the last 7 feet with lightweight concrete pumped through the street's ventilation grates, said the WSDOT's Laura Newborn.

Now that the tunnel is full, WSDOT will remove the ventilation grates along Battery Street and make some other sidewalk improvements as well as turn what used to be the south portal into a slope with grass.

Meanwhile on the north side of what used to be the tunnel entrance lanes, crews are putting the finishing touches on what's become 7th Ave. North, which allows another east-west travel corridor between Denny and Mercer Street, reconnecting South Lake Union with Uptown neighborhoods.
The final two projects left on the Alaskan Way Viaduct removal schedule will be to rebuild Alaskan Way as part of the city's waterfront improvement plan and finish some street and pedestrian connections between the waterfront and the stadiums in SoDo.