Seattle it's time we talked.
You’re not a kid anymore. People have lived in your footprint for thousands of years. But your recent growth spurt has been phenomenal. You will start to notice some changes, if you haven’t already: some of them terrifying, some of them delightful. You’ll feel things you never felt before. You’ll start hanging out with a faster crowd, and they won’t always be good for you.
With great change comes great responsibility, to paraphrase Marvel Comics. And it is time to take on some of that responsibility. It sounds daunting, but remember: We love you.
C’mon, Seattle. You’re growing into a big city.
It’s time to start acting like one.
Think of the city’s situation as your first day of kindergarten, or arriving on campus at a big college, or leaving a small family business to work at a big firm. Suddenly, you’re surrounded by others. Every time you turn over on your nap mat, somebody’s feet are in your face. There’s a line for lunch, then a line at the milk cooler, then a line to turn in your lunch tray. Years later, you’re crammed into a shoebox-sized dorm room at night, and in a lecture hall of 200-plus every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Seattle is that transition writ large. Between 2008 and 2017, our Emerald City added more than 100,000 people. It’s as if the entire population of Everett decided to move here in nine years. And all those people need space for their nap mats. (...)
Seattle cannot sprawl. Buildings have to be built closer together, and because they can’t get wider, they get higher. The roads and the sidewalks don’t get any wider, either. There certainly aren’t any more parking places for the people moving here. The bus stops that were placed just a few years ago were for a handful of people, not the crowds of 50 to 75 that jockey for space. This is “density,” and Seattle, you’re just not used to it.
I'm looking at you in particular, South Lake Union. A decade ago, a pedestrian was more likely to encounter rats and liquor bottles on the sidewalk than another person. Since then, Amazon added nearly 35,000 jobs, most of them in SLU. Now, the area is bustling with throngs of employees and their dogs; food trucks serving lunch to the employees and dogs; Ubers and Lyfts dropping off and picking up; cranes to build more high-rises; and construction workers trying to flag, drive and walk. The maze of streets that used to pass empty parking lots and shuttered commercial laundry buildings is carrying Ubers, Lyfts, buses, dump trucks and commuters. (Wait until Amazon reaches its goal of enough office space next decade for 55,000 workers. Does the plan say anything about where these people are going to fit amid closed-off streets and sidewalks? Doubt it.) It’s as if a giant vise had the city in its jaws and was slowly squeezing. And the people caught in it — all of us — are forced to get closer to one another.
Are we midtown Manhattan? By no means. The New York Times’ excellent 2016 article about sidewalk congestion noted that on one weekday, 26,831 pedestrians used a stretch of Fifth Avenue in three hours. However, the same article notes sidewalk crowding on Capitol Hill in Seattle. We’ve made the big time — kind of.
We have to take notice of others. There are so many of us now. Gone are the days when you could jump on the first bus that came by for your route and grab a seat, or go to Pike Place Market without dodging mobs of visitors and a stream of drivers who insist on motoring through the city’s most crowded thoroughfare. Driving I-5 south on a Friday night usually involves tears.
I’m not aiming this solely at residents; visitors, you need to adjust your expectations, too. If you haven’t been here in a while, this isn’t your mom and dad’s Seattle. The Kingdome is gone. Teslas are everywhere. Speaking of cars: Their numbers in the city have grown by about 1 jillion. (Well, OK; not a jillion. But, the number of car registrations grew by 7 percent between 2013 and 2015, while population grew just more than 2 percent, which was kind of a surprise.) Get it? Seattle is a big city now.
The squeeze really starts to pinch in places where we’re all thrown together a little more than we’re used to. Mainly, jammed public transportation, the region’s congested freeways and public thruways. This might be a little hard to swallow, Seattle, but frankly, you could do a little better when it comes to sharing the space you’ve become accustomed to over the years with a lot more people. And newcomers, there’s an awful lot of you all at once, but you’ve still got to share with those who were here already, no matter how many of those high-rises were built just for you.
You’re not a kid anymore. People have lived in your footprint for thousands of years. But your recent growth spurt has been phenomenal. You will start to notice some changes, if you haven’t already: some of them terrifying, some of them delightful. You’ll feel things you never felt before. You’ll start hanging out with a faster crowd, and they won’t always be good for you.
With great change comes great responsibility, to paraphrase Marvel Comics. And it is time to take on some of that responsibility. It sounds daunting, but remember: We love you.C’mon, Seattle. You’re growing into a big city.
It’s time to start acting like one.
Think of the city’s situation as your first day of kindergarten, or arriving on campus at a big college, or leaving a small family business to work at a big firm. Suddenly, you’re surrounded by others. Every time you turn over on your nap mat, somebody’s feet are in your face. There’s a line for lunch, then a line at the milk cooler, then a line to turn in your lunch tray. Years later, you’re crammed into a shoebox-sized dorm room at night, and in a lecture hall of 200-plus every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Seattle is that transition writ large. Between 2008 and 2017, our Emerald City added more than 100,000 people. It’s as if the entire population of Everett decided to move here in nine years. And all those people need space for their nap mats. (...)
Seattle cannot sprawl. Buildings have to be built closer together, and because they can’t get wider, they get higher. The roads and the sidewalks don’t get any wider, either. There certainly aren’t any more parking places for the people moving here. The bus stops that were placed just a few years ago were for a handful of people, not the crowds of 50 to 75 that jockey for space. This is “density,” and Seattle, you’re just not used to it.
I'm looking at you in particular, South Lake Union. A decade ago, a pedestrian was more likely to encounter rats and liquor bottles on the sidewalk than another person. Since then, Amazon added nearly 35,000 jobs, most of them in SLU. Now, the area is bustling with throngs of employees and their dogs; food trucks serving lunch to the employees and dogs; Ubers and Lyfts dropping off and picking up; cranes to build more high-rises; and construction workers trying to flag, drive and walk. The maze of streets that used to pass empty parking lots and shuttered commercial laundry buildings is carrying Ubers, Lyfts, buses, dump trucks and commuters. (Wait until Amazon reaches its goal of enough office space next decade for 55,000 workers. Does the plan say anything about where these people are going to fit amid closed-off streets and sidewalks? Doubt it.) It’s as if a giant vise had the city in its jaws and was slowly squeezing. And the people caught in it — all of us — are forced to get closer to one another.
Are we midtown Manhattan? By no means. The New York Times’ excellent 2016 article about sidewalk congestion noted that on one weekday, 26,831 pedestrians used a stretch of Fifth Avenue in three hours. However, the same article notes sidewalk crowding on Capitol Hill in Seattle. We’ve made the big time — kind of.
We have to take notice of others. There are so many of us now. Gone are the days when you could jump on the first bus that came by for your route and grab a seat, or go to Pike Place Market without dodging mobs of visitors and a stream of drivers who insist on motoring through the city’s most crowded thoroughfare. Driving I-5 south on a Friday night usually involves tears.
I’m not aiming this solely at residents; visitors, you need to adjust your expectations, too. If you haven’t been here in a while, this isn’t your mom and dad’s Seattle. The Kingdome is gone. Teslas are everywhere. Speaking of cars: Their numbers in the city have grown by about 1 jillion. (Well, OK; not a jillion. But, the number of car registrations grew by 7 percent between 2013 and 2015, while population grew just more than 2 percent, which was kind of a surprise.) Get it? Seattle is a big city now.
The squeeze really starts to pinch in places where we’re all thrown together a little more than we’re used to. Mainly, jammed public transportation, the region’s congested freeways and public thruways. This might be a little hard to swallow, Seattle, but frankly, you could do a little better when it comes to sharing the space you’ve become accustomed to over the years with a lot more people. And newcomers, there’s an awful lot of you all at once, but you’ve still got to share with those who were here already, no matter how many of those high-rises were built just for you.
Here's How:
by Melissa Davis, Seattle Times | Read more:
by Melissa Davis, Seattle Times | Read more:
Image: Gabriel Campanario/The Seattle Times
[ed. See also: After 14 years, I’ve had it. I’m leaving Seattle]
