By Eric Jaffe
CityLab
The debates cities have over tearing down elevated urban highways can be intense—what with opponents preying on commuter nightmares of crippling traffic, despite much evidence to the contrary—but deciding for removal can open up a world of opportunities for long lost public space. Just ask Seattle.
It’s been a few years since the city started to demolish the double-deckerAlaskan Way Viaduct that severs downtown from Elliott Bay. And it’ll be several more until the job is done. But Seattle is already making progress on the multi-part, billion-dollar waterfront plan that will recapture acres of prime area that have lived in the shadows of the road for half a century.
This week officials posted extensive details of the plan online for public comment, as part of a draft environmental impact statement. Last week the city broke ground on a related project called MarketFront—converting a parking lot at the historic Pike Place Market into a public plaza that will eventually help reconnect the market and the waterfront. And tomorrow construction will pause on the waterfront’s seawall replacement, another related project which is about halfway done, so shops canresume business during the summer.
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