Seattle's high-water mark?
When did our city start to back away from its 50-year mood of lofty civic aspiration? The writer puts it in the autumn of 1998, when we decided to settle for the bronze medal.
The 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 earlier this summer got me thinking about something that the late newsman David Brinkley said a few decades ago. Brinkley, the cool and detached half of the “Good night, Chet”/“Good night, David” NBC News team of Huntley and Brinkley, pegged Apollo 17 — the last manned mission to the moon in December 1972 — as the high-water mark of American power.
In Brinkley’s view, it was all down hill (into the crater) from there, as astronaut Gene Cernan climbed back into the lunar lander and pulled the hatch closed on the once glorious republic for once and for all. As a confirmed fan of popular history — that brand of looking at the past designed to appeal to a mass audience rather than a handful of academics — I admire anyone who can riff polemically on something as feel-good as a successful moon landing and make it seem wistful and sad.
Whether Brinkley’s thesis is true or not is beside the point; like talk radio, it gets you bothered and thinking, staking out your position on something the possibility of which hadn’t crossed your mind before.
The question of where to place this city’s high-water mark came to mind the other day as I took my daughter along for our first ride on Link Light Rail, from Westlake Station to Tukwila and back on a weekday afternoon. The rail cars are fabulous — clean and new, filled with stainless steel and the antiseptic sound of pre-recorded feminine station-stop announcements just like in some anonymous Big City somewhere.
To this north end resident, the route south through the Bus Tunnel (I’ll always call it that no matter that trains now run through it—the same way the Center House is for me still the Food Circus) felt esoteric and exotic. Sure, the area south of Pioneer Square was familiar from Amtrak rides to Portland, but suddenly we veered left and were high above the Franz Bakery, getting an eye-level glimpse of signage we’d previously only seen through the upper reaches of our windshield while driving Sixth Ave. S. Then, we disappeared, a la Disneyland’s Thunder Mountain Railroad, into the side of Beacon Hill, only to emerge on that perennially misunderstood thoroughfare known as Martin Luther King, Jr. (nee Empire) Way.
That the first phase of the region’s light rail system is complete is a major milestone and a Good Thing. While the conservative and libertarian critics will inevitably point to low ridership figures for years to come and make the predictable I-told-you-so arguments about the greater cost-effectiveness and flexibility of buses, anyone with a sense of history gets that it will take a decade or more for light rail to really have an effect. It takes that long for settlement patterns, housing construction trends, and genuine economic development to really kick in along the rail line and begin paying off in a big way (to a degree that bus routes rarely deliver).
Taking the long view of history even further back (and then forward), consider that a region’s infrastructure investments don’t ever pay out all their benefits in the first years or decades or even centuries for that matter. Look at Interstate 5 and the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (built in the 1960s), the Alaska Way Viaduct (built in the 1950s), Aurora/State Route 99 (built in the 1930s) or just about any major street in the city (built as early as the 1850s). Infrastructure investments made by early Seattle residents — to identify and then formally survey routes, to condemn and/or purchase land, to plat and grade right-of-ways — began in the 19th century and are still producing returns in the 21st century for millions of us (whether we travel by car, bus or rail).
So while the light rail system is something to be proud of, it’s also something that could and should have happened 40 years ago — an oft-told story that doesn’t need repeating here. But just imagine what MLK Jr. Way — especially along some of the southern-most portions of the Link route, with vacant lots, dilapidated buildings, abandoned vehicles — could already be like now had light rail been present for nearly two generations.
Regardless of the missed opportunities in the past, the years ahead for communities and neighborhoods along the rail line will be all about progress. And progress (apart from the light rail portion of Forward Thrust going down in defeat way back when) was what post-war Seattle was all about. Like successive movements of a decades-long civic symphony broadcast by the Bullitts on KING FM, or, like a neverending recession-proof Ivar’s fireworks show (remember those?) with one spectacularly colorful cluster of civic success after another, Seattle was a city that Got Things Done.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Comments:
Posted Wed, Aug 19, 8:41 a.m. inappropriate
Great article.
I think Seattle is still on a steep upward trajectory. Sure we've lost some things. But to use Sound Transit as an example, we just voted for a massive Phase II, something previous generations never did. Personally I think the city gets noticeably better every year. More like a real city.
1998 was a great time in many ways. But boy, the things we didn't have... One example among many would be the string of excellent parks on/near the outer fringes of Downtown. And Seattle was a bit whitebread back then. Far more parking lots then as well.
I wish we'd gone for the Summer Olympics. What great advantages we'd have. I doubt any Olympic city in history could park a bunch of cruise ships (each a giant hotel) within walking distance of half its main venues. Seattle Center would have made a fantastic "Olympic park." The Athletes village could have replaced the giant surface parking lot at the UW (along Union Bay), turning into dorms afterward.
Posted Wed, Aug 19, 10:23 a.m. inappropriate
Feliks,
Excellent as usual... I would add the impact of voting no on the Commons idea twice also showed this was a town no longer set on gold standard, but willing to settle for bronze...
I regard myself as living on borrowed time, as I always openly stated I would probably not live to see light rail actually run... the human clone of "waiting for the interuban..."
I rode it on the first day with my family, and lived to tell the tale... so far, so good.
Ironicly, a similar light rail opened in Vancouver two days ago, and for all the debate here about costs, needs, tunnels and lawsuits, there was ZERO coverage in any area media.
Cricket chirps as Vancouver opened a light rail line about the same length, with more tunnels, for .8 billion less, and done as a public private partnership. Not a mention.
Barely a metion as Portland opted to BUILD IT's OWN STREETCARS, rather than import them.
Bronze.
And coal lumps to Seattle Media.
Posted Wed, Aug 19, 11:42 a.m. inappropriate
a rod and griffey left town because they wanted more money, Boeing left town because the unions wanted more money, the sonics left town because Shultz and his yuppee posse paid too much money.
Posted Wed, Aug 19, 12:01 p.m. inappropriate
We also rejected the Seattle Commons. It could have been a 42 acre park in SLU. Instead what we have to show for ourselves are the SLUT, Paul Allen's cute toy train to nowhere, the prospect of a solid phalanx of 40+ story towers that will add to our glut of unaffordable housing and office space, and our breath-takingly special $240,000,000 makeover of 6 blocks of Mercer Street.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 6:34 a.m. inappropriate
Seattle's best days are ahead of us.
This is not a city in decline.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 11:29 a.m. inappropriate
Really interesting article, thanks for letting me wander around inside your head.
Wouldn't the failure to pursue the Olympics be more akin to the Challenger disaster? Apollo 17 was an achievement, not a failure. I'm curious to find out what you think the last major achievement was for Seattle before the Olympics non-bid... completing the new I-90 bridge in 1989? (the other bridge's collapse in 1990 could have signaled the start of a rough patch) Approving Sound Transit in 1996?
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 11:48 a.m. inappropriate
Ask Vancouver BC about all of the hidden costs of hosting the Olympics. We avoided 10 years of hassle and 20+ years of debt, and I personally don't regret either of those things one iota.
And are you seriously implying that the Olympics had anything to do with the Nisqually Quake? Please.
We would have been wise to pass on hosting the WTO, too.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 12:45 p.m. inappropriate
I for one am glad we made that decision to not burden ourselves with the Olympics. As the previous commenter states, we would have been saddled with decades worth of debt, and property and other taxes would have climbed by more than they otherwise have. I will never understand this sense of envy for bigger places that so many people in Seattle seem to succumb to. I'm happy that we have not quite become New York by-and-by. If the bright lights and big smokes are that attractive, why not just move there? Don't lament them not being here.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 1:06 p.m. inappropriate
This article prompted me to think twice about my earlier beliefs about Seattle and the Olympic games. The premise of rejecting the games was that we'd have more resources to build and maintain our existing infrastructure.
How's that working for us? I'd have to say, not as well as we might have hoped. Last year, Art Thiel quoted Stuart Elway that the we-voted-they-decided dynamic of Safeco Field still had a huge negative drain on the trust level in the community.
Any attempt to regain our supposed "can do" spirit needs to address that turning point, and not just in a superficial, 'aren't you glad we got the Mariners' way either.
Not to be too touchy-feely, but the Forward Thrust failure, Safeco Field, Seahawk Stadium, the Commons vote, and yes, the WTO are all part of our civic "shadow side" and must be faced honestly for any common purpose to be regained.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 5:31 p.m. inappropriate
Seattle has a chance to rekindle its optimistic spirit again with the 50th anniversary of the World's Fair. Will anything be done to commemorate this event? I doubt it. But it would be nice. In 1962, facing the future was still seen as an exercise in progress. The future was a bright, challenging, fun, prosperous and wonderful place. They don't make futures like they used to.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 9:14 p.m. inappropriate
That would be interesting, but it would be a history event.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 9:17 p.m. inappropriate
To clarify, it would be backwards looking by nature. Maybe there could be a strong forward-looking element, but I suspect it would be limited to the people who already think about the future, like us.
The real barriers to getting things done are the Seattle Way, and the related ability of voters to say no on many issues. A more traditional representative government that makes decisions would be helpful. If they had the right opinions of course.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 9:50 p.m. inappropriate
Nice piece, Feliks! I hate to dwell too much in the "what might have been" for Seattle. But, I do think it's worth reflecting on what opportunities we passed on by rejecting the rail transit part of Forward Thrust, the Olympic bid and the Seattle Commons. I think most people in this region find the Forward Thrust and Seattle Commons rejections as regrettable with the benefit of the hindsight of history. This piece places the rejection of the Olympic bid in that same context. I can only imagine how much more light rail, streetcar and better developed urban villages we'd have (or be on the way to building) if we had pursued and succeeded in that bid.
I continually find myself mirroring Snoqualman's "I will never understand this sense of envy for bigger places that so many people in Seattle seem to succumb to" sentiment. I will never understand this sense of envy for smaller places. Seattle is, by definition, a metropolis and it's time we stop denying ourselves the infrastructure and amenities that any metropolis needs to succeed.
And, we are. Just too slowly. But, as this week's city council elections have proven, the retrogrades who would try to turn back the hands of time are increasingly being pushed to the margins. And, that is why they are increasing their volume over the last couple years. Just as with the Fox Channel viewers and Rush Limbaugh listeners shout in frustration at town hall meetings, increasingly fearful of the diminishment of their white male privilege, the smaller Seattle types are screaming too as their power slips away.
Posted Thu, Aug 20, 10:14 p.m. inappropriate
As much as I enjoyed the greater point, and the "vehicle" used to tell that story with the abstract, I can nit help but think the stillness of coasting on our self absorbed myth happened with something much smaller, the KeyArena remodel in 1994.
The vision of Seattle Center was reduced to a "settling" for as little as possible. The settling for less, and the narrowness of vision, plot by plot, project by project, inside baseball council deal after another.
10 mayors, no leader, many many many studies.
I am amazed that any of this stuff ever got built, even the things that were built and are now long gone, based on what passes for leadership today.
Posted Fri, Aug 21, 3:11 a.m. inappropriate
I'm surprised that historian author Feliks Banal doesn't know that Forward Thrust in the late 1960s proposed building a grade-separated "heavy rail" subway, like BART in San Francisco, not an on-the-street "light rail" like MAX in Portland.
Picking up on the author's point, we can still imagine what Martin Luther King Jr. Way would look like today if light rail had been present for the past two generations, but there was never a plan to build that kind of train -- interfering with the evil automobile at 18 traffic lights marking street crossings of the tracks -- until voters in 1996 funded Sound Transit to build light rail from NE 45th Street to S 200th St by 2006.
The Forward Thrust subway, had it passed with the voters in either 1968 or 1970, was not aligned through the Rainier Valley in either proposition.
Here is another note from documented history pertinent to the author's musings about Seattle no longer on the path to greatness:
"The major theme [of organized opposition in 1968 to the subway proposal] ... was that Forward Thrust through rapid transit was trying to take away or alter the 'way of life' in the Pacific Northwest."
This quote is from a paper co-authored by Robert E. Gogerty obtained by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and used in it published report on our mass transit development efforts in 1976. It's available via Googling words in the quote.
Some would call our new light rail "transformative," and the mark of a "real city" but for at least the next few years it's going to be no more than a long, empty bus on two billion dollar steel rails.
Posted Fri, Aug 21, 8:12 a.m. inappropriate
jniles, ridership isn't bad even now. However, if it is, three major factors are going to add a lot more riders by the end of this year: 1. My vague understanding is that bus routes will be realigned to meet it (and sometimes require riders to use it in lieu of their former routes). 2. The airport connection is going to add two major additional user groups, travelers and people who work at/near the airport...both of which are active day and night, without a main rush hour. 3. People's habits. As with commuter rail (which is now well used), new riders tend to accumulate gradually.
In any case, the starter line's #1 purpose is to work as part of a network. The utility of any one station is partially dependent on how many other stations there are.
Posted Fri, Aug 21, 9:02 p.m. inappropriate
I surprised at how many people there are who think they know Seattle and yet begin, like tourists, telling tales about the Space Needle or Light Rail.
I grew up in New York City. If you asked a real New Yorker to tell you a real New York story, it wouldn't be about the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State building.
Somehow, everyone misses the point of Seattle. The point being...there is no point. There is no center. There is no one place to be. Seattle is sitting at home, on a wooden floor, in your house in Wallingford, with slightly leaky roof, and reading a book. Seattle is getting up at 9:30, getting on the bus and stopping for coffee at Septieme and being allowed to get to the office at 11. Seattle is wandering down a side street and feeling really safe.
This and many more tales are the hour to hour Seattle that the pundits and glorifiers have yet to grasp. The ones who enjoy them have yet to write about them.
Posted Sun, Aug 23, 11:12 a.m. inappropriate
Two of our current Councilmembers sponsored this "bronze medal" legislation. Who were they? Richard Conlin and Nick Licata. Nickels was absolutely right when he said "the people of Seattle have decided it's time for a new generation of leadership." Time for a new Mayor and a new Council!
Posted Mon, Aug 24, 9:04 a.m. inappropriate
If Seattle had been building for the Olympics, the cost overruns would have made it impossible to pass ST2 or possibly even finish the first LINK.
The handwriting on the wall was the defeat of the Commons plan. It's hard to say which was more appalling, the idea of some that the evil Paul Allen could be thwarted by making him keep his land, the support by "hipsters" for the idea that the "free market" would provide more low-income housing than an actual program to provide low-income housing, or...well, just too many choices here.
Combine that with the long-standing Sierra Club opposition to rail transit, and you could see that the political DNA of Seattle was seriously lacking some co-valent bonds. Fortunately for all involved, the regional and national economies pretty much steam-roller the little quirks. Like most cities, Seattle will continue to follow time's arrow into the future.
Posted Tue, Aug 25, 11:06 a.m. inappropriate
When digging a hole in the ground and suddenly realizing you're unable to climb out, the first thing to do is stop digging. Grand monuments to industry and history -- sports arenas, towering skyscrapers, luxury air travel -- serve upper-class whims while leaving the basic needs of most people unfilled. Bridges and highways induce a travel demand that overwhelms their capacity, no matter how many miles are added. The Commons was larger than necessary to fill the need for sufficient parkland there.
Seattle is enamored with grandiose monuments recognized as folly too late. The Seattle Way is nothing more than the pet projects of profiteers and the priviledged running up against the reasonable demands of the working class and poor as moderated by pompous media darlings.