This is, bar none, the dumbest article I have ever read. I-405N can "handle the traffic"? Has the author (of either that article or this one) ever driven on I-405 between 8AM and 7PM?
I-5 is a vital corridor. Billions of dollars of commerce goes up and down it. Seattle doesn't get to decide to cut it off and hurt all of the other communities served by it.
Yep, add me into the group that says this type of article is simply trolling. Commuters aren't the only vehicle that transits I5. With the removal of the 99 Viaduct and the proposed removal of I-5 in this article, the Port of Seattle would be effectively orphaned from the roadways. Sure, a fair amount of the goods from the Port are sent via rail, however almost all of our local goods are transported via semi truck.
Unless you also propose abandoning the "intermodal" size of container, and also go with the Euro/Japan sized urban delivery truck (thereby also increasing shipping and goods costs for the poor for things like milk and food), I don't see how the side-road infrastructure of Seattle could handle the traffic from one of the nation's largest ports without a viable interstate system.
We could just flip the signs on Hwy. 99 Aurora Avenue North upside down and have our own Route 66. Think how fun and quaint it all could be. You wouldn't get to Canada very fast, but imagine all the great fast food places you would have to visit on the way.
Ummm.... trying to get from end one of Vancouver to the other in rush hour is absolutely fucking RIDICULOUSLY BAD. Maybe some studies have shown "their traffic is better than ours"... but that certainly doesn't make it a model we should aspire to emulate.
And who -WHO- wants to live, work, or visit businesses sandwiched directly between two interstate lines?!
Take out I5, and build a floating bridges from Renton to Kenmore on Lake Wash. We can have big clover leaf exits to 90 and 520, and a truck stop on Mercer Island. That would open up some space in the City.
If Seattle were the end of the line like Vancouver BC then tearing out I5 might be fine, but it isn't. Suppose you dump tens of thousands of extra vehicles onto surface streets, what do you suppose the city traffic will look like? Would the adding four hours to your across town commute be good for you? It would make the developers rich, but every person who lives and works here would pay the price.
The land around I5 is so expensive the only people who can afford to live there are the kind of guys who paint a giant Bettie Page on their house. Or live in a tent.
If Seattle had any kind of density this would actually make sense. There's a couple hundred US cities with a population density of over 10,000 people per square mile. Seattle can't even dream of getting near that -- it's way down at 4,000 per square mile. If you stacked two Seattles on top of each other we'd still have a ways to go. Seattle on a normal day is like a regular city after a zombie apocalypse.
@2 I have to agree. Saying that Vancouver doesn't have a freeway and doesn't have worse traffic ignores the hand-in-hand process of access-oriented-development and the geometrical reality of King County: You need to go north and south.
Such a move would absolutely decimate whatever's left of Seattle's manufacturing base; it's great if you imagine the city as existing for consumers, where workers are imported from who-cares-where
Don't waste your time & ours
I-5 is a vital corridor. Billions of dollars of commerce goes up and down it. Seattle doesn't get to decide to cut it off and hurt all of the other communities served by it.
Unless you also propose abandoning the "intermodal" size of container, and also go with the Euro/Japan sized urban delivery truck (thereby also increasing shipping and goods costs for the poor for things like milk and food), I don't see how the side-road infrastructure of Seattle could handle the traffic from one of the nation's largest ports without a viable interstate system.
Could someone check the gap between Charles Mudede and his chair, and maybe tether him if it looks like it's grown wider since yesterday?
And who -WHO- wants to live, work, or visit businesses sandwiched directly between two interstate lines?!
This is astonishingly dumb.
If Seattle had any kind of density this would actually make sense. There's a couple hundred US cities with a population density of over 10,000 people per square mile. Seattle can't even dream of getting near that -- it's way down at 4,000 per square mile. If you stacked two Seattles on top of each other we'd still have a ways to go. Seattle on a normal day is like a regular city after a zombie apocalypse.
ā¢ Rank US: 18th
ā¢ Density 8,161/sq mi (3,151/km2)
ā¢ Urban 3,059,393 (US: 14th)
ā¢ Metro 3,733,580 (US: 15th)
ā¢ CSA 4,459,677 (US: 13th)
Such a move would absolutely decimate whatever's left of Seattle's manufacturing base; it's great if you imagine the city as existing for consumers, where workers are imported from who-cares-where
You're an ass, an idiot, and a liar in whatever order you prefer. A talented ass/idiot/liar, but we've got plenty of those already. Please fuck off.