Wandering on foot through the streets of Seattle during the recent snowfalls—literally in the streets, because why not when most cars are stuck somewhere?—it was hard not to notice the change.
The cars were humbled. The people were emboldened. The snow was deep enough that it blurred the point where the curb ends and the car space begins. It was a rare sight for Seattle, and it was accompanied by a rare happening. Street life in this city—by which we usually mean sidewalk life—was finally, actually, street life.
In neighborhoods across town, people stayed out late sledding, skiing, snowboarding, snowball fighting, or just plain old wandering down roads that had become soft pedestrian boulevards. It brought to mind the spontaneous street celebrations after Barack Obama's election as president, and made one wonder whether, in addition to its long and rich culture of street protest, Seattle is developing something new—a culture of street joy.
It could be just a happy coincidence of exciting events. But if this culture of street joy is indeed new and indeed happening, it could have some of its roots in city hall wonkery. Specifically, Mayor Greg Nickels's Give Your Car the Summer Off program, announced last year as an expansion of the city parks department's already-successful Bicycle Saturday and Sunday program—which periodically shuts down the loop in Capitol Hill's Volunteer Park, the loop in Seward park, and a stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard, allowing bikers, skaters, and pedestrians to use the newly car-free roadways. The mayor's new Give Your Car the Summer Off program closed additional stretches on three different Sundays: 14th Avenue East on Capitol Hill, Rainier Avenue South near Genesee Park, and Alki Avenue in West Seattle. To the extent that all of this got many thousands more Seattleites accustomed, however briefly, to using the streets for purposes other than commuting, it may well have contributed to the new eagerness to use streets for celebration.
Same for the current posture of the Seattle police toward street parties. In both recent instances of unsanctioned street revelry—the election and the snow—the police, who normally exist to protect commerce and commuting, ceded the streets to the celebrants and made it their duty to protect the celebrants during their temporary takeover of space that isn't theirs.
It's messy, of course, this business of joy-ing in the street. During the snow, there were occasionally heated confrontations between sledders and drivers. And after the melt, things were literally messy on many of the party boulevards. On East Denny Way, for example, cardboard, mattresses, and other sledding materials were left on the side of the road for others to clean up.
Still, why not build on the better parts of this good thing and expand the city's street-closure program? We don't need to wait for snow to shut streets down, nor do we need to wait for summer.
Right now, Seattle's sanctioned street closures are confined to daytime hours during two months—August and September—and mostly to streets that are near public parks or beachfront. But other cities, including New York, have temporarily closed non-parkside streets to cars in experiments that Seattle claims to be emulating. So why not do the same here? And why not in months other than the two warmest months of the year? After all, there are good occasions for street revelry all year round, and a large number of streets in the city that are good candidates for temporary reappropriation.
When we asked readers for suggestions on Slog, The Stranger's blog, we received many worthy ideas for new street closures. Ballard Avenue. Pike Street between 12th Avenue and Broadway. University Way. Portions of Westlake. Third Avenue. It's easy to imagine many times, and many configurations, that would make for an interesting (and, most importantly, fun) mix of nonvehicular traffic on these and other streets.
Would the city be game to try?
"If there's growing willingness and enthusiasm, it certainly fits with a lot of what we're trying to do as a city," said Alex Fryer, spokesman for Nickels.
Sounds like a good start. 
