I’ve been looking at old photographs of Seattle before I-5 cut through downtown, and it inspired me to imagine a utopia where our most walkable neighborhoods aren’t separated by an impassable wall.
I live right up the hill from the highway and if I want to come home from a show at Black Lodge, I can walk all the way to Denny or over the Lakeview overpass, up a big ass hill either way, a 20 minute walk for a distance that SHOULD BE one city block if there wasn’t a dang highway. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to have an aerial tram instead?
Plenty of people are solving this problem by riding Lime scooters up these hills, and that’s dangerous for pedestrians and scooter riders! You can pay $7 for the gondola or pay $7 to hit a crack in the curb and break your arm. Ask yourself, girl clutching onto her boyfriend sharing a Lime scooter: wouldn’t you rather be taking in the view on a gondola?
We can solve the chaos of the Denny / Stewart / Yale intersection, a nightmare for any mode of transportation. Please give me a gondola that goes over I-5.
Here are some of my dream connections:
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Melrose <-> Eastlake, somewhere between Harrison & Republican: perfect for me, personally
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SLU Discovery Center <-> Cal Anderson Park: connecting two neighborhood centers, SLU to the light rail, another option for 8 bus passengers
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MOHAI <-> Volunteer Park: this takes 30 minutes on foot, and usually more with public transit?! or ten luxurious minutes with a view of Lake Union
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Monorail @ Seattle Center <-> SLU Streetcar @ Westlake <-> First Hill Streetcar @ Broadway – just to link all of the other novelty transit modes together
I know the more reasonable solution is to put a lid over I-5 from Pike up to Lakeview, but I think it would be fun and give Seattle some more character to have a gondola.
submitted by /u/93daysofsummer
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