[sfpotter]

Creating I-5 was really contentious at the time. It destroyed neighborhoods. My family has lived in the area for several generations and my parents can attest to this.

Lidding it would be great, but removing it would be better. There are loads of people who live in the suburbs north and south of Seattle and expect to be able to drive 20-30 miles each way day-in-day-out to commute. If the city continues to grow, this simply isn't tenable in the long run, because you can't grow highway capacity forever; they would no longer be able to do this, which would be good. Just rip the band-aid off.

[seanmcdirmid]

The only thing worse than having I5 is not having I5. There really isn't enough north-south corridors to replace it (15th, 99, east/west lake...really that's it), given that I5 is close to the water and a huge hill as it comes in across from UW. It is already non-viable to expect a 20-30 minute commute into the city.

We saw what happened when the Palestine supporters blocked off I5 a few weeks ago...on a weekend without a rush hour, people were stuck in traffic for hours.

[sfpotter]

There are no major highways through Manhattan. The city is better for it.

Drive around the lake if you need to get past the city.

[seanmcdirmid]

I used to commute from westchester county into midtown, and there were definitely parkways in, although I never needed to go all the way down to Manhattan itself. I would usually try to take the train though (often not possible given how westchester county is poorly connected to train stations).

[Tagbert]

Because 405 is already a a crowded route that becomes bogged down during rush hour(s). Your choices are pretty much sound, city, lake, city, or mountains if you are looking for a route through Seattle.

[aidenn0]

How do you get from the GW bridge to the Cross-Bronx Expressway if there are no major highways through Manhattan?

[mathgeek]

278 also runs through Manhattan. I assume the previous poster really means something that excludes Randalls Island and the Heights.

[resonantjacket5]

It's actually a bit interesting to see WSDOT's plan for i-5.

For capacity they aren't expanding I-5 directly, but expanding i-405 and sr167 instead for people trying to go past Seattle.

For i-5 within Seattle area, there are some 2030s plans to convert the hov lanes to toll lanes and reconfiguring the reversible express lane system. * I-5 Managed Lanes: SR 16 to Pierce/ King County Line * I-5 Managed Lanes: Pierce/ King County Line to I-405 * I-5 Managed Lanes: I-405 to US 2

https://www.psrc.org/media/4840

[seanmcdirmid]

I don't see that working out. I405 is often worse than I5, it is just as bottlenecked as I5 is, and there isn't much room to expand it especially when it runs right up next to the water.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to actually do that commute. It was horrible when I was living in Bothell and attending UW 30 years ago.

[resonantjacket5]

They are constructing it right now the expansion between bellevue to renton.

https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/i...

The bellevue to lynnwood section was already 'expanded' a decade ago though as one can tell, it still has traffic. They're opting to increase the tolls now.

[mc32]

I think Boeing threatened to pull out of Seattle if WSDOT did not improve freeways, some years ago -getting stuff in and out of Everett is really important to them. If I-5 was torn down and only left with surface streets, what's left of Boeing would pull out and go to Kansas or some place.

[uoaei]

Can you articulate a cogent reason why people need to cross the city on such a thoroughfare just to live their lives?

[seanmcdirmid]

You are located in the north of the city and need to get somewhere south of the city, or vice versa.

You only have a few roads to do that east or west of Lake Washington. In most cases, people aren't going to downtown Seattle, downtown Seattle is just in the way.

[uoaei]

Why are those services not available in the north of the city? This is as much a planning issue as traffic is.

[ndriscoll]

Maybe it doesn't make sense to have duplicated services for the city. I grew up in Tucson. There's a zoo, but it wouldn't really make sense to have 2 zoos. Likewise with the Sonoran Desert Museum. There are also unique locations to visit. There's 1 Titan Missile Museum. There's 1 Old Tucson Studios. There's 1 Biosphere 2. They are spread out on opposite ends of the city. There are a bunch of hiking spots that are all different, and people don't want to go to the same one over and over.

Then you have things like the air force base or the university. They're important for the economy so you may work at or near them, but for the most part you don't really want to live directly adjacent to them. Fighter jets are very, very loud all day long (my mom lived where you could see the runway right behind her house when I was a teenager), and the military is known to dump very nasty chemicals for their training exercises. University students throw parties, and there's more crime in the area. For a few years, I lived a little over 2 miles from the university, and I had my bike stolen out of my backyard. In the further out part of town where I grew up, that was completely unheard of. Some of the downtown parks are mostly full of homeless adults. The parks where I grew up were mostly full of kids/teenagers.

So there's reasons why you might want to live within a ~30 minute drive of a denser area with services or work, but without having to actually live near a dense area. And your day-to-day services are already spread across most of the city, so you don't need to travel for those. I get the impression that many cities have a similar dynamic.

[bluGill]

Why does it have to be a 30 minute drive? Why not a 30 minute transit ride? (if transit cannot provide a 30 minute ride that is a fixable problem)

[com2kid]

Seattle is a narrow city bordered by water on the west and the east, so a lot of its expansion has happened along the north/south axis.

If I want to buy furniture, I need to go either to the far north or far south of the city to a suburb just outside the city limits (cheaper land).

Culturally, lots of food can only be found in certain areas of the city, which means north/south traveling.

In regards to services overall, obscene land prices means that not much new is being built that isn't owned by large corporations, so we are pretty much stuck with what we have, and what we have is rather quickly disappearing.

[seanmcdirmid]

I think it has to do with the way the city grew out north and south, with the city itself as a chokepoint (since it is surrounded by water otherwise). Common reasons people need to go from north seattle to south seattle: IKEA, Southcenter, Seatac. I'm sure there are reasons for people to go north as well, but I have a harder time thinking of them (other than that they went south and now have to come back north).

[com2kid]

There is some really great African food up north just outside the city. :-D Likewise along the northern parts of Aurora you can get some really great Korean food. (Also not strictly in the city limits).

Parks, lots of parks.

The only decent real "spas" I've found are all up north (Again, Shoreline, just outside of the city)

Ballard and Fremont are both big draws.

UW, kind of a biggie.

[resonantjacket5]

> I think it has to do with the way the city grew out north and south, with the city itself as a chokepoint (since it is surrounded by water otherwise). Common reasons people need to go from north seattle to south seattle: IKEA, Southcenter, Seatac.

> I'm sure there are reasons for people to go north as well, but I have a harder time thinking of them (other than that they went south and now have to come back north).

@sean To reach UW, northgate (well it's demolished just ice skating for now lol), ballard and fremont; granted this is a bit optional, uvillage is nice to visit as well.

Also I find it a bit interesting you have a harder time thinking of interesting stuff in north seattle, I am actually sometimes annoyed having to drive north past downtown seattle to reach north seattle. I didn't really think about it but yeah ikea/southcenter are relatively easy for me to reach. :)

@uoaei Anyways regarding planning itself. Seattle is actually actively planning their next community plan, one of the items called out is whether to allow more 'urban villages' which have shops and other amenities.

For malls, Northgate should have been the north seattle mall but it's currently being redeveloped. There's U village but it's a bit high end. The other alternative of Alderwood mall isn't too bad to get to by driving but during peak traffic can be quite slow.

https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/one-seattle-plan

[seanmcdirmid]

I live in Ballard, so maybe I just got used to everything up here. We don't usually need to drive unless we go somewhere far away (if anything downtown, just take the D line).

[buildsjets]

Light Rail to Lynnwood will be open by September of this year, which gets you to within 2 miles of Alderwood Mall. Light Rail to Alderwood? 2040, suckers.

[mitthrowaway2]

Because nobody knows how to build a train, it's a mystery.