Features Mar 11, 2020 at 4:00 am

Hiding a Highway

Construction begins on Seattle's newest freeway lid.

Lester Black

Construction on the Montlake Lid over Highway 520, between Portage Bay and Lake Washington, can be seen in the middle distance. A future 520 lid connecting Roanoke and North Capitol Hill will be built over the open space you can see at the bottom of this photo. Lester Black

Back to article

Comments

Very interesting, I feel like that money might be better allocated elsewhere like, I dunno, helping the homeless but I suppose it could go to worse places. Is it possible that I-5 might undergo similar renovations in the future?

steelmonkey on March 11, 2020 at 9:32 PM

Seems someone's Switched the labeling of the 520 east- and west-bound lanes on The Map. I hope they figure it out before they get Almost finished.

Bigger Boondoggles Have happened.
see: floating bridges/galloping gertie WA

kristofarian on March 13, 2020 at 8:56 PM

@2 -- Nope they didn't
Apologies.

kristofarian on March 13, 2020 at 9:01 PM

A frequent finder to queries about the chaos of Seattle’s layout is-“Oh, we’ve got these mountains, and all this water, the graphs makes a logical grid impossible!”

Bullshit. Vancouver has much closer and taller mountains and alone water, and they have a fucking grid. Their streets make logical sense, no meandering cowpaths.

Wandering Star on March 16, 2020 at 10:02 AM

Sigh...

if only I-5 had been routed down the spur (I-405) thus going around Seattle, and I-90 would have aligned with the West Seattle Freeway so the the I-90 terminus would have been the West Seattle Freeway terminus

Merchant Seaman on March 16, 2020 at 10:31 AM

didn't see that coming- Lester's maybe final Stranger column a valentine to the more gracious, beautiful Seattle of days of yore.
Perhaps a heart does beat in there somewhere.

kallipugos on March 16, 2020 at 11:05 AM