Thank you!

Since 2002, I have been asking people to simply observe the activity on the waterfront and discuss what this means about the role of the waterfront in Seattle's public life. It surprises some that the most vibrant stretch of waterfront is directly adjacent to the noisy, dirty viaduct. North of the viaduct lay an urban wasteland of private property and parking lots. More recently, since perhaps 2008 and the opening of the sculpture park and adjacent condo buildings this has begun to change, but it's more of a place to walk through than to hang out.

Clearly, that's because it is destinations and proximity that attract people -- not wide open lawns. Unfortunately, this means that a widened swath of land along the waterfront is unlikely to be a powerful attractor.

For the combined costs of various aspects of this waterfront reclamation, the city could have purchased entire blocks of property and built a park perpendicular to the waterfront that would run up the hill all the way to 6th Ave. Such a park could contain real gathering places and serve real people who live, work and visit the city higher up the steep incline.

Those who imagine that Seattle can build a waterfront equally magnificent to that found in Vancouver BC certainly are not in touch with reality and are imagining away the constraints.

Unfortunately the "get real" train left town when special interests blocked any elevated design proposals for the waterfront. Aside from the damage to mobility and access with the congestion producing tunnel/park, the city loses any designs that could have incorporated the structure itself into a vibrant, interesting partially covered environment that perfectly "generates an understanding of the unique and distinctive constraints, and opportunities, of place" rather than just another horizontal flat plane of grass and concrete soaking in the rain.

Possibly by the time the tunnel is finished Seattle will choose to leave the Viaduct that remains and convert it into a 2 level park. The result is at little cost an elevated open air park on top with a rain protected 2nd level with tremendous opportunities for dining, merchandising and sunset watching no matter what the weather. The connections to the sports stadiums, Pioneer Square, the Market and Belltown and the Museum District are already in place. This jaw dropping view Boardwalk would be the talk of the nation and the world.

You mean it's not really a "seismic death trap" after all? We could've really retained the transportation features and also had an amenity for the waterfront?

That must mean that someone wasn't telling us the truth.

Wise up, guys. That ugly hunk of concrete is coming down. Spit out those sour grapes and imagine actually seeing Elliot Bay from all over downtown. After the revolution the urban planners should be taken out and shot. After the architects. Right after the guy who invented the double zipper.

I've noticed that all of the resident seagulls have been left out of the designs as well. Winter wind and rain in your face and on your head is one sort of experience. Seagull poop is quite another...

I see your point -gabowker. But when you think about the money wasted on one neighborhood, the devious process used to advance this mess, and the resulting impact on the region's mobility, you'd think that someone should be wearing an orange jump suit and picking up cans along the highway.

How many social programs and neighborhood amenities could you pay for with 2-3 billion dollars?

This seems long on colorful rhetoric and peer criticism but very short on substance. What is his particular vision? And what difference does it make what you put out there on the 151 days a year it rains in this town? Unless you're a duck or working on being one, you're not going out to catch the rays anyway.

I'm really glad to see the Viaduct coming down but very concerned about what might be imposed in its place. I wish the city would be given a chance to evolve toward Elliott Bay, to ooze down to the waterfront slowly over time -- albeit with some reasonable rules and regulations to guide it and with a public-minded gesture here and there encouraged by the city for the good of all -- without a grand design. As for the grand design depicted above, I have two concerns. First, where are all the people going to come from who will populate the long stretches of waterfront and the giant swaths of grass? I work on First Ave, just above Pike Place Market, and on my short lunch break, it's all I can do to take a stroll down Pike Place or spend a few minutes in Victor Steinbrueck Park. I can't imagine by what conveyance short of a catapult I could make it down to the waterfront during lunch -- with or without the Viaduct, with or without tilted planes of grass -- and then how would I get back in time for the remainder of my work day? Buildings and streets and commerce are going to have to progress down toward the Bay if we want people there, not just empty tongues of grass. I think of Baltimore's inner harbor, where buildings march right up to the water and pedestrians have to walk under some of them. My second concern is the oddly dislocating visual game the grass swaths are playing with the fabric of the city. The southerly grass swath drapes itself over the ferry terminal, reducing the docks to a kind of tableaux for people strolling on the grass. There is it, folks, down below, the famed Seattle Ferry Terminal in all its grittiness, worth a look but please don't touch it or throw anything down to the seagulls.

Few people will walk to the end of a pier for a view we can mostly see from the sidewalk anyway. And it absolutely, 100% needs some shade and rain cover except on those partly cloudy 65 degree days when we don't need either.

As for saving parts of the viaduct, someone is paying enough attention...we need that land for the new roadway. And keeping it would still require a massive retrofit.

Now if only jmrolls would finally share his opinion on which 99 replacement option we should pursue....

Here it comes: more "Seattle process." Let's talk it to death.

Gee...I don't know. They all look so good.

OK -mhays you got me. I'm laughing. If the viaduct has to go, then I would focus on whatever plans provide a bypass for downtown. Regardless of where anyone stands on cars, there's nothing to be gained by forcing tens of thousands of them downtown while we sort it out. Commuters need to pass through, and the core needs a way to control how and where they enter. And whatever the park turns out to be, it won't benefit from a sea of gridlocked traffic.

Love it or hate it, the viaduct did an effective job. Hopefully some combination of elements can do as well..?

Here's something the waterfront needs that's also needed more in the rest of the city: awnings. If you want people to go somewhere even in the rain, you give them shelter.

People go to the Pike Place Market every day. It's covered, but open to the outdoors. The stuff across from the Market on Pike Place is covered by awnings. You can walk the entire length of the street on both sides and only have to dodge rain crossing small side streets for a couple of seconds.

So, first of all, jettison all the open green space inland of the piers. Put in a boulevard along the water's edge, but rather than having it parallel the street, make it a covered walkway immediately west of a new line of buildings, narrow west to east but big enough to hold a bunch of smaller businesses. Add street parking on the east side of the buildings (the west side of a reconfigured Alaskan Way with four lanes and street parking on both sides.) The east side of Alaskan Way would be the existing buildings. There might be room for a bike track but not for transit or additional lanes (except for the brief couple of blocks south of the ferries.)

The new waterfront buildings with awnings over the broad waterside walkway could be topped with mid-rise, mixed use tenants, possibly even some residential. You could house all the tourist stuff on the first floor, along with useful neighborhood shops and businesses. Then you build terraced walkways from the hill down to the new neighborhood and walkway, with crossings above Alaskan that drop people right onto the waterfront.

Open up a naturalistic beach somewhere, and keep open space piers for parks (though consider development on at least one of those currently slated to be a barren wasteland). But to account for the winter months, extend covered walkways around the perimeter. Maybe even rebuild the aquarium so that it's built inside of one of the perimeters, underneath the grass, so that the space above can be used for events but the part below is still useful the rest of the time.

Not with all those trees in the way.

But the author is right. What's being proposed here is a wasteland. Once the seagulls and even worse, geese, take over those lawns, who's going to want to go there? What will break the wind coming off the Sound? Where can people duck in from the rain? I commuted by ferry to Seattle for several years, and frequently walked from Colman Dock to Denny and Western (since the waterfront trolley was perfectly timed to pull away as the ferry tied up to the dock). In winter months, the piers and their overhangs over the sidewalk were a godsend. The "improved" areas of the waterfront were a no man's land of inside-out umbrellas and pant legs soaked with rain water from the typical fall, winter and spring weather.

"Oh, look at that view!" takes up two minutes of a person's time. If you want people to to go the waterfront, you need to have development just like you have with the piers. Otherwise, that section will be a place to go through, not to go to.

AMEN on awnings cascadian! Absolutely crucial when you want people to hang out. It's why the Market stays busy on rainy days. The current waterfront relies heavily on awnings.

jmrolls, glad I could lighten your day!

My advice: take the viaduct and just live with the space for a few years. It's basically cut off from the downtown, which is a bluff above it, between Seneca and Wall. Let this place evolve on its own for a few years, as the city decides what it needs more of. What we don't need are more places like Freeway Park, that look nice in pictures but are actually rather hostile close up.

Kinda need to build the new roadway during that period....

I hate the bore tunnel plan, and despise the artists rendering of what the plans are for the waterfront development.

Build a new seawall, and a new viaduct, and leave the rest alone.

As I've said, anyone who still believes this grand waterfront promenade is actually going to happen must still believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. No worries about the wind, the highrise condo towers will make a very nice windbreak (and block views of Elliott Bay much more completely than the Viaduct ever did)...

Yeah - It rains so much in Seattle, it makes no sense whatever to have parks and open space. Discovery Park? Who wants to sit out on a bluff exposed to the weather? And it's so far from anything, why would anybody ever go there? I certainly can't get to it on my lunch break, so I see no reason for its exsistence. It must be a deserted wasteland. I bet when it was originally designed, the conceptual renderings of trees in the design looked all "conceptual" and "rendered", too, and not like real trees at all. The difference between how foliage is depicted in artists' renderings and how it actually looks in real life has troubled me for some time. The city should embrace reality and sell Discovery Park off to developers who can do something useful with it like build condos. And really, who wants to go outside anyway, with all of the elements up in your face all of the time, and annoying animals all over the place? Nobody in Seattle likes to be outside. All of the money being poured into the redesign of the waterfront should be used to begin construction on a giant dome covering all of Seattle to save us from this awful place we live in - I'm envisioning it as a kind of awning for the entire city. Or we could always just build more viaducts... You can look at the view from the comfort of your car, and as an added benefit they provide attractive, welcoming shelter from the unending, unendurable rain under their wide concrete shoulders - there's always a crowd under a viaduct.

Here's a few memories for what those are worth these days:
Seems as though there are not enough people left in town who can remember when the Pike Place Market was for picking up whatever could be carried home on the bus after a trip to the department stores and when the pre viaduct waterfront, in transition, but still very much working, was the premier place to entertain one's family and the occasional out-of-town quests, maybe including when money was flush a ride on the futuristic Kalakala or one of the quieter ferries. A whiff of a certain smell still occasionally arrises from between the piers bringing total recall.

Waterfront lovers scratched their heads at the incongruences of progress when the roar of the viaduct appeared on the scene. Then came Benson's trolley with its offer of a trip back in the other direction, but the impression after a ride or two on that short line of track towered over by a roaring viaduct was of a token allowed in the hope of it lending the impression of San Francisco's fully functioning system of cable cars. ALMOST makes one sympathetic with a Mayor not willing to settle for impressions until one remembers that first things come first.

P.S. for particulars on "fully functioning" see:
http://www.humantransit.org/2011/11/san-francisco-cable-cars-and-green-lights.html

I'd like to see a rendering of a new single deck viaduct over the northbound lanes, for a trolley with a walkway and bikeway and some shrubs. It could be connected to the higher grades to the east and have bridges over to the waterfront. Any design must make the car subserviant to the walker.

At roadway level, there should be less lights and crossings, maybe every two blocks. Have the roadway dip down two feet between crossings with a buffer of plantings between the sidewalk.

And if it could also accommodate a lane running each way it might mitigate the congestion due to the limited capacity of the tunnel.

Son of Viaduct...good idea.

Skronk, have you seen photos of the English sitting in their cars looking at the stormy cold oceanfronts to which they have retired for their annual holidays? If they can do it, so can we; the weather is the same.

This unrealistic waterfront design reminds me of North Seattle Community College, which has grey concrete buildings with uncovered walkways, designed by a Californian and apparently not vetted by any Washingtonian.

"We need to know precisely how much space is available for park and plaza amenities and how much devoted to vehicular circulation, the largest user of Seattle's current and future waterfront."

This information is censored by the DOTs and parks department planners. Imagine 20,000 more vehicle thru-traffic, roughly tripling current traffic volume. Imagine more side-street traffic unable to park constantly cruising around and through dangerously hampered by interaction with pedestrians/bicyclists at crosswalks. Imagine frustrated motorists resorting to reckless accelleration.

The current design for Alaskan Way will produce a traffic nightmare and public safety hazard. It will impel the new waterfront to fall short of promises and economic activity. Sensibly managing waterfront traffic requires thorough consideration of a 2-lane frontage road east of a 4-lane Alaskan Way. The AWV replacement which displaces the least traffic onto Alaskan Way (onto Mercer & Denny Way too) is the 'stacked' 6-lane cut/cover tunnel. It makes the strongest seawall, the most practical utility corridor, and does not rule out waterway habitat construction nor public access for water actities.

edit: I'll end my engineering prescription for Alaskan Way when Douglas MacDonald, Paula Hammond & Grace Crunican (edit:) face 'due' charges related to how they evidently "rigged official studies" to attain quotable "predetermined outcomes" and for which these central planning officials have long known their bored tunnel plan is actually counter-productive to the public interest.

If this particular cut/cover scenario is 'evidently' better, our DOTs are responsible to fairly inform the public before its rejection. Backing-up promises of giggly park-ish place-like places, lots of weirdish statues, stark corners, more incompetent street crossings, et cetera. The traffic worsening predicted confirms "mishandling of public documentation" as in, these DOT directors have chosen a plan with MUCH MORE IMPACT & COSTS than is possible & supportable.

James Corner said something wonderful in his analysis phase of the project. Something to the effect that each of these parks would be an extension of it's neighborhood and context. Instead what he show's is a broad brush of the same vocabulary for the entire waterfront. It is bold but boring. These broad grassy angle planes are a cliche in the design world that shows very little imagination or appropriateness to the climate and culture of Seattle. A park designed to endure must be tied to the place, ecologically there is little to be liked in this design. Even the high line was dressed in native plants and created varied places to inhabit and stroll through, like what was done at the Olympic Sculpture Park. There have been many references made to compare this to the sculpture park but there is very little in this design that is like the sculpture park - except for the geometry.

Here's an idea for a sculpture for one of these parks. Buy a surplus F-117 stealth fighter and give it the Chia Pet treatment. It should mimic the landscaping pretty well.

Sculpture Garden lacks amenities that define parkspace. The gravel path evicts bicyclists and wheelchair users and makes walking uncomfortable. With few shade trees and seating, it's not designed to enjoy the magnificent view of Puget Sound. It is more like a private museum than a public parkspace. Its sharp-edged angular symetry conveys a sense of machinery and the insultingly absurd sculptures as factory products.

Sculpture Garden has the soul of a parking garage. It exemplifies the moral decadence of Seattle elite, who were delighted to displace the waterfront streetcar barn and in its place bolt down giant traffic cones, metal trees, robotic animals and various torture devices. What wickedly pleasant little jokes they play on the peons who are unfortunately becoming more and more a nuisance to the smooth running of the Chamber of Commerce plutocracy.

Crack dealers, meth addicts, seagulls and goose poop. Just like at all the other downtown Seattle parks.

Can you say financial suicide?