Lids over freeways have become rather the norm around Seattle. The 520 bridge lid on Mercer Island is quite long and a shorter one is being built in the Montlake neighborhood. The Washington Department of Transportation has endorsed the idea of lids over I-5 and a study is currently underway studying a lid that would stretch from Denny Way to Madison St. We should be getting the report soon, but so far we have word that a lid is technically feasible, from an engineering standpoint. Several community meetings have been held on what should be located on that lid, with proposals from parks to public low-income housing. A study is also underway for a lid over I-5 between NE 45th St and NE 50th St by a group of UW students. The photo above shows the site of that lid over I-5.
Again, a variety of possible uses of the lid have been proposed. And again these have ranged from a park, a bicycle path across the freeway at about NE 47th, housing of several possible types and commercial buildings. The UW students have put up a survey asking for your opinion of what possible uses would best meet the needs of nearby residents. Go to the survey to offer your opinions. The survey should take you about 5 to 10 minutes to complete. It will be open until May 17.
If you want to learn more about the current effort to lid I-5 at various points downtown, take a look at the Lid I-5 website. The work that has been completed to date is quite substantial and very impressive.
“The photo above shows the site of that lid over I-5.”
Er, no, it doesn’t. 😉
Small technicality 🙂
So is this just someone’s homework assignment then?
yeah, that’ll happen…
Dallas did it: https://network.thehighline.org/projects/klyde-warren-park/
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/682073e9768f29848860b1f4e2d846090b42c1d48586fedf12c67e5ddbb60028.jpg
Not soon, that’s for sure. Right now might be a kind of weird time to even ask for opinions, with the economy going down the drain. In however many years it takes to crawl out from under the wreckage, there might still be some interest in a downtown lid, which I think might be a higher priority, and then if that turns out really swell, 45th NE might get a look. Like ca. 2040.
Today I learned that 45th is not our neighborhood’s Main Street, but a “scary, noisy highway” that you’d have to have a deathwish to try to cross.
And that 40th and 50th, which are each used by tens of thousands of people every day to move around the neighborhood and across the north end, are actually “barriers” to people doing just that.
And that a major city doesn’t actually need an interstate to move hundreds of thousands of people, goods and services day after day. No, we should just bulldoze I-5 and move it over to the Eastside by 405, where it can destroy their neighborhoods instead.
And that the housing that would cost taxpayers untold billions to build in it’s place would actually be “affordable.”
Because who doesn’t have money to burn in the Age of Coronavirus?
The real damage from the I5 route is downtown, which of course used to be much better connected to the area east of the freeway. Here in Wallingford, connection with the University District is relatively speaking kind of mixed blessing.
The connection with N 50th/45th/40th is not so clear. I mean, two of those three streets certainly intersect with I5, but in any event they would all continue to be east/west arterials.
Yeah, Bernard had some early promise but he’s just another brick in the far left wall.
“…had some early promise?”
I sensed another TJ with the very first comment of his that I noticed.
😂 What’s disgusting? Being associated with TJ? I think that’s a bit harsh. Funny and accurate perhaps. But disgusting? Nah.
Hey neighbors a suggestion: reflect on whether posting stuff that might come across to others as “snicker snicker yuk yuk hi I’m 12 (at best)” is or is not a positive thing for you.
Oh come on, Bernard. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re not the troll here!
Thanks, Karen
You gotta love it when people who suggest those who don’t agree with their goal of eliminating single family zoning are racist, while they scold you to be neighborly.
I’m not so sure about redirecting the busiest portion of I-5 onto 405 is an idea that’s gonna fly. But there is something inherently attractive about putting a lid on it (I-5), reclaiming some land, and reconnecting sections of the city bisected by the freeway. Decades ago I took an architecture class at UW that suggested the biggest land use blunder ever for the city of Seattle was the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which similarly cut off downtown Seattle from the waterfront that defined it. The tunnel, as politically divisive as it was, offered an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime (and yeah, expensive) opportunity for a do-over, a land-use mulligan. Hoping the planners for the waterfront don’t screw it up. Lidding I-5 would offer another (pricey) opportunity. Will be interested to see if this idea goes anywhere.
Amen Wo Fat (LOVED Hawaii 5-0, FYI!). Reconnecting Seattle with the waterfront will be an important and necessarily detailed undertaking. We can only INSIST they do it well. One downer they inherited is the largely boring buildings that front the bay. So much mediocrity was allowed to grow up behind the viaduct. Maybe a few tear-downs for some world class architecture? Hello, Bill Gates! The Frank Lloyd Wright archives are open and taking your phone call!
That was a very popular opinion among people like UW architecture faculty, but hardly universal among Seattle residents. We’ll see what we get, but the diagrams I’ve seen for the corridor right of way along the waterfront make it so wide that I don’t think you’ll experience any sense of connection anyway. The amazing benefit was to downtown property owners, what a surprise.