I regularly walk across a freeway overpass in LA with my wife and the noise is literally deafening. To the point that we have to completely pause our conversation until we’ve finished crossing. It’s amazing how much quieter public transit can be simply because the noise become intermittent!
> intermittent Yeah, this point needs to be stressed, even the most frequent train systems have a 90 second headways at peak, most frequent elevated ones are around 4 minutes (like the Montreal REM)
A highway lid would definitely be an improvement for Seattle as it'll cover the eyesore which is car infrastructure. Of course, there shouldn't be a highway through a city in the first place but if there is to be car infrastructure, best to keep it out of view via highway lids and underground parking.
Agreed. Honestly I wouldn’t mind if there were freeways constructed underneath m city (like they did with the viaduct) since it wouldn’t really affect what’s going on the surface like a subway does
7:23 I love renderings, but you’re right… it’s hard to actually imagine it when it isn’t there. It’s great that you were able to show how a project like this can actually work - without going too far away!
Downtown is definitely the best place for an I-5 lid but i used to live in the u district and used to fantasize about how cool it would be to lid I-5 between the ship canal bridge and 45th (or even 50th)
You have the greatest take of any urbanist here. While most say simplistic things such as "freeways=bad", you correctly note that the problem is putting freeways through urban areas. Freeways wouldn't be such a disaster if they would stay on the periphery, as they do in most Italian cities, to give one example. I supported Seattle removing these mistakes. I'm from San Francisco and we removed some freeways there when I was a kid, but then lost our nerve. I think its too bad. Lately, these ideas have been gaining traction again, which has me cautiously optimistic that we can spread the word in a measured way.
There are ventilation requirements for all tunnels of a certain length. The HWY 99 tunnel has pumping buildings at both ends. Don't know if it filters all the air that passes through it, or just dumps all the nasty air into one blob in the middle of the city.
@@Matt-wc2mf I think the big important thing of course though is if its anything like the air towers for the NYC tunnels that cross the Hudson, they dump the air well above street level.
@@valleyofiron125 I looked it up because that sounds wrong, but it does seem these tunnels don't do any filtering, just dumps all the concentrated exhaust fumes into one spot out of short pipes close to the ground. Yikes.
The only exception I can think of, where we use "The' is WA-167 "The valley freeway". There might be some other alternate names that get The, but not the I-5 or the wa-167 etc. Or if you were saying something like "The I-5 corridor" or "The I-90 Express Lanes"
I've lived all over this country (from New England to Colorado to CA to Seattle) and changed up how I call freeways (which I always called highways before moving to SoCal in the mid-80s) to match the locals and I have never said "the" if I'm also saying "I." It's either I-10 or The 405. And actually in Denver we usually just said "25" or "70" in conversation. Like, "I'll just jump on 70 and get off at the Denver West exit." Every time he said "The I-5" I died a little inside.
Really wish they would extend the freeway lid in both directions. Definitely to Sierra & Lake Streets but ideally between Washington St. and Valley road.
I mean a lid extension between Sierra St. and Virginia is such ridiculously low-hanging fruit. Short gap, same elevation, no disruption of on/off ramps required (edit: not that disrupting on & off ramps should ever be a reason to not implement better urbanism).
Huh, I didn't even know "lidding" was an official thing, but I certainly have thought about it but brushed it aside thinking it was too out-there. Now I know!
A better, more attractive, and similar cost alternative to lidding I-5 thru Seattle would be to simply fully bypass downtown to the east with several new bored tunnels underneath the First and Capitol Hill Neighborhoods, each around 2.4 miles in length (end portals would probably be cut and cover). To the south, they would start at the north end of the I-5 / I-90 interchange, and to the north, they would end north of the I-5 / Mercer Street Interchange around the curve on I-5 near E Galer Street (smaller tunnels connecting Mercer's ramps to the new tunnels would be included). Such a project is comparable to the recently completed SR 99 tunnel underneath the Seattle Waterfront which allowed the Alaskan Way Viaduct to be demolished and has given Seattle its waterfront back. The only major difference is you would need several adjacent SR 99-sized tunnels to carry I-5 northbound, southbound, as well as its express lanes. Such a tunnel bypass, depending on how it's staged, could significantly reduce construction impacts and keep most of the current interstate through downtown construction free, with most impacts limited to the north and south tie-ins. More importantly, this bypass would allow around 2.5 miles of the existing I-5 trench to simply be filled in with gravel/dirt and re-contoured with parks, buildings, and surface streets. New highway lids over existing and highly confined interstates, especially like what is proposed on I-5, are massive, complex and very expensive structures (the foundation work alone, especially to support tall buildings on what are essentially oversized overpasses, gets insanely expensive very quickly, especially in seismic zones like Cascadia). By bypassing downtown and replacing all those lids with simple dirt fill, it gives you a lot more freedom to decide what to do with that land while also substantially reducing the cost to redevelop the land. The bypass also gives you signifigantly more land north and south of the downtown core to work with than the current lid proposals could ever hope to provide. Further, keeping I-5 in its current location but with added lids will severely constrict future maintenance and replacement work on the aging freeway, let alone severely limiting widening or lane reconfigurations. With large diameter bored tunnels, everything is new so you can more easily bake those future capacity and expansion needs into the proposed design (you can also always add additional adjacent tunnels as needed). And depending on the design, Light Rail could even be included below the main highway decks as part of the current of a future project (a single SR 99 sized tunnel can easily fit three lanes of traffic on a middle deck and have enough room underneath for at least one track of LR, possible two. This assumes a twin-bore configuration with a smaller service/evacuation tunnel constructed between the main tunnels. A three-tunnel configuration with the express lanes in the center tunnel could still serve this purpose.) Note: it's likley several tunneling methods would be needed for such a proposal given the unique geology of the area in question. Finally, my OCD requires one criticism of the video... as a native Washingtonian, we say "Interstate 5" or "I-5"... please don't call it "the 5" or "the I-5", almost no-one outside of California uses that terminology unless they're from there. Other than that OCD triggered criticism, an amazing video on a very important issue for Seattle!!!
I’d like to see Amtrak cascades be routed onto the I-5 right of way up to Everett as part of the high speed rail plans that the state supposedly wants to start. Repurposing this right of way between tukwila and lynwood for a 4 track right of way would mean making the right of way much narrower which could make multiple lids over it much cheaper I also think suburban service could use this right of way. Link as it exists when the lynwood extension opens could be used as a replacement for I-5 during contruction of HSR but in the long term I think Seattle should have a regional RER service connecting Tacoma and Everett while the metro service (link) should only be contained in Seattle and king county more broadly. The systems shouldn’t be combined like Sound Transit is planning to do
last june I took a trip to the coast, I went through this section of Seattle and was stuck in traffic for two hours. this stretch of road is quite possibly the worst damn thing ever constructed.
It's a terrible bottleneck, and it's incredibly vulnerable. One day a few years ago, a truck full of fish turned over on hwy 99 (running parallel to i-5), and the city was PARALYZED. I-5 was the only major north-south arterial. I was trying to drive about 2 miles from Queen Anne to Capitol Hill... and it took me 2.5 HOURS down Denny Way. If I weren't disabled, it would have been faster to park the car, but I can't walk up Capitol Hill 😢
They should not only put a lid on highway 5, but they should dedicate two lanes for an express metro line from Sea-Tac Airport to Boeing alongside highway 5. And get off the highway 5 at the crossing with highway 99 to go to King Street/Union Station and join highway 5 again at Seattle Library/Freeway Park in the North. And in the South join the existing metro line from highway crossing with highway 405 to Sea-Tac Airport. Seattle would get a magnificent express metro line from North via downtown to South. And in the future extend to Tacoma or even Olympia. If this express metro will ride every 5 minutes, people will use it and the loss of two highway lanes would not be missed. With so many people using mass transport, rush hour will not lead to standstills anymore. It’ll cost a lot of money though, as well as time, to build it. And it will get worse before it gets better, but in the end it will favor people living in the area. Americans always think big except when it involves public transport. It’s time for a change.
you should put a lid on your mouth boy. a lid??? really what a tremendous waste of money. that is like an idea a child comes up with. there are way better ways to spend a crazy amount of money like that. besides there will only be more and more electric cars on the road, pollution will go down over time.
One of these is also being considered in my home city of Philadelphia, covering the Vine Street Expressway (I-676), though the extent of it, I'm not 100% sure. Either way, putting a lid on it would be a good way to patch up the trench that separates Chinatown and Center City with North Philly, and make the place more appealing. I would hope the idea includes closing some of the on ramps to better distribute traffic, but I'm not sure if that's whats planned, and I quietly doubt it will, even if 676 is a constant nightmare of traffic. At least the area would be nicer to be around, so I hope they do it.
I was thinking that removing exits would make the I-5 more of a motorway and less of a strotorway (a motorway with too many exits for a high-speed road, just like a stroad but for a motorway, also a strotorway needs to have an exit distance between two exits of 1.2mi/2km or less for one route direction), you proved me right. Btw, I was waiting for you to mention the notorious Union Street exit as well and you gladly did.
I agree but I think the on ramps are slightly more of a problem. In Denver there is a spot that has I think 3 on ramps within about half a mile of each other. One of them is a looping ramp and then there's like.... 250 feet to merge before it turns into an off ramp going right back off the highway. Creates multiple problems. People can't merge off/on in the same spot so it always causes a backup as everyone is trying to mix. And the onramp's loop and short headway means cars can't even accelerate to highway speed before merging. It's the dumbest possible design. Forces drivers to enter the highway ASAP and at like 30 MPH into a 55.
Boston built a skyscraper on an interstate lid (I-90). But better might be to use the linear nature of the lid...transit, with a multiuse pathway above, or alongside, along the length. The combination of transit, walking and biking helps with the last mile for the transit.
Well, Boston already has a transit ROW parallel to I-90. The Worcester main line is also in the trench along with the 'Pike, with approximately hourly passenger service. A lot of highways in Boston were planned to follow railway corridors. I-93, or the Southeast Expressway, runs along the Old Colony line, and I-95's Southeast Expressway was planned to follow the Southwest corridor (but never got built).
I wonder if with the current I-5 lid, trucks carrying hazardous material have to get off I-5 before reaching the tunnel. In Phoenix, that’s the case with the half-mile I-10 tunnel, and that’s just with some parks on top. Also, I wonder how traffic engineers came up with those ridiculously complicated freeway exists in the first place. In downtown Phoenix, I-17 has a few weird exits (e.g., Jefferson Street on I-17 SB paired with Adams Street on I-17 NB, where the off-ramps immediately go to a major intersection that has frontage roads), but otherwise, ADOT kept everything simple (the 2 important I-10 interchanges, which are 7th Avenue and 7th Street, are single points, and all other service interchanges by downtown, except for the one going to Sky Harbor Airport, are diamonds).
Nice work on this video. It really does make sense; the highway was already built in a trench and now it only makes sense to lid it over. Turns out Portland Oregon has a plan on the books about lidding a portion of I-5 near the Moda Center. We'll see if that ever happens. I've always thought that Portland 405 which runs right through classic downtown, should definitely be lidded. These are definitely some of the discussions that we should be having about our cities. Thanks for your work!!
I think a full removal between the ship canal bridge and I-90 would have far better results for the people the live in every neighborhood in that corridor. It will reduce traffic volumes by discouraging drivers via inconvenience. Much like removing ramps for the lid. But replacing i5 with a surface boulevard that is connected to the street grid will additionally slow drivers down as well, which a lid won’t do. Freight traffic can take 99 (which makes a lot more sense) and through traffic can take 405. I don’t hate the idea of a lid, but knowing how the Alaskan way viaduct replacement project went I have very little trust that that state DOT will be reasonable with their needs for the roadway under the lid. Not to mention the associated cost overruns. I would rather advocate for a removal by using the cost as a main point and street grid reconnections, green space and reduced noise as additional points.
It would probably be much easier to remove State Route 99, than to remove a federal interstate. Your plan isn't bad on paper, but dealing with the federal government will be significantly more difficult and slower than dealing with the State of Washington only.
Although it would be heretical, removing on/off ramps within a CBD would certainly limit the amount of vehicles exiting directly into the heart of downtown, reinforcing either the through traffic nature of the interstate and/or requiring CBD-bound vehicles to exit much sooner, where they would filter into the surface streets, or even park on parking structures built over the freeway at both ends of the lid & transit, walk or roll the remaining distance to their destination. Not likely to happen but Seattle would be a great test case!
Yes. And the thing that is frequently not mentioned is this ramp is signed with speed limits, and the driver literally is heading into a wall for quite some time, also signaling that they’ll be making a hard right turn shortly.
I'd love if the could reroute the section of I-5 that blocks off Eastlake from Cap Hill. There were talks about doing that ~5 years ago but i think the fizzled out... That would be another interesting thing to look into. It's so hard to get between the neighborhood, so a lid might help, though it wouldn't make the hill any less steep like relocating it could (with switchbacks).
Santiago, a very seismic intense South American metropolis built many of its freeways underground and has long stretches of nice parks and real estate development alongside, bringin much more value to everyone in the city.
As a new resident of the PNW, you will sound more like a local if you call it I-5, not “The I-5”. It’s also never “the 5” unless you want to sound like you’re from the Southwest. 😉
As a Seattlite (grew up in th suburbs) i legitimately think this would be wonderful!!! It would add 15 maybe 20 minutes to my route to downtown but would actually make me want/willing to go downtown!!!
There is a similar proposal here in Los Angeles for the 101 in Hollywood. They're calling it a "cap park." The renderings look wonderful, but I'm sure it's a loooong way into the future.
i would appreciate there being some walkway up to capitol hill along SLU/eastlake, it's completely cut off by I-5 and the closest way to get up is denny hill.
Unfortunately this is also where I5 rises out from the continuation of the hillside, so it’d be a bit harder. But yeah it really isolates the two sides. What could be a 5-10 minute walk down the hill is often extended to a 30 minute walk when you have to walk down to the nearest crossing. And for the whole stretch between Denny and Eastlake there’s really only one bridge
There are plenty of places in the Puget Sound region that could benefit from highway lids. Besides just Downtown Seattle, North Lake Union Seattle, and South Seattle, there is aslo plenty of highway canyon on the Eastside in Bellevue, Mercer Island and Kirkland which could use lids!
I used to live in the Olive Tower on Olive and Boren (seen at :46 on left side) back in the 1980s, and later again in the early 1990s. In the 80s, I lived on the back facing I-5 and the noise was horrible when we cracked a window. The second time I lived there, it was facing west on Boren Ave and the noise was tolerable. I hated that highway because I had to always cross it to do anything.
Let's be clear. It would be like getting run over by a truck and applying a bandage. As one of the few lucky ones who is fortunate to live in a city without urban freeways, the only real solution is to get rid of the %^&%&% thing and reap the benefits of all that space. 4,000 homes were demolished. 40,000 homes could be built there now - among other amenities including a natural ROW for awesome transit. For those who will inevitably freak out and claim it can't be done I will ask how we managed in a similarly sized city in the same region. The only reason you have so much traffic is because you CHOSE to encourage so much traffic. Undoing that is up to you.
I live in the South of Seattle! I hope future apartment buildings are the type that have restaurants at the ground floor. Kinda like in Taipei!
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As someone who doesn’t live there, I wonder whether putting a metro line along the centre, taking out a lane each side, would work and help reduce local traffic?
Yep. We're back down to 10 min runs for much of the day even on weekends despite it being pretty crowded when I was there. Google had its times wrong because of it... :/
Nope the 1 line already runs parallel about 20 blocks to the west in fact it runs parallel for almost all of its length (except the section through the Rainier valley)
It's only "The I-5" in California. We don't use "The" before highway names in Washington. The only exception i can think of is some people call WA-167 "The valley freeway". Or if you were saying something like "The I-5 corridor" or "The I-90 Express Lanes"
I-5 is so terribly designed that there’s a segment through downtown where there is basically ONE thru lane that doesn’t exit into downtown. Seattle also has exits toggle between left and right lanes, so people are constantly changing lanes. This causes all traffic to be changing lanes constantly about 3-4 times to drive through downtown. It’s a disaster. I say bury the freeway and form a double decker freeway that provides at least 2 lanes of thru traffic and only has the right lanes exit to downtown. Then put a big park on top. Downtown Seattle has very little park space and it can definitely use a space to breathe.
A better idea would be to just do a deep bore tunnel underneath Capitol Hill between Chinatown and Eastlake. Completely remove the footprint of I-5 from downtown Seattle, adding millions of square feet potential development on existing plots taken up by the highway and reconnecting the neighborhoods to the east seamlessly to downtown once again. Maybe 4 tunnel bores, two large ones side by side for general traffic, then two smaller ones on the top and bottom for the reversible express lanes and a dedicated busway. They’ve already done extensive tunneling with Highway 99 which has completely revitalized and improved the waterfront, this would allow them to do the same with Seattle’s downtown and neighborhoods east of it.
If only we could make like a really really long car that carried a ton of people, and it went on rails and dropped people off at major points of interest.
They're good for connecting different cities together (if well built like in Germany) but really shouldn't be cutting through downtown. Freeway lids are just a compromise for the majority of driving voters who would faint at the mere whisper of possibly reducing freeway lanes/exits. Remember suburban car commuters are basically toddlers with their favorite SUV jingle keys so it's very hard to do anything without them throwing a tantrum
@@inuendo6365 I mean there is often no choice but the car though. Exceptions exist, one of the things I liked when I used to go into NYC a bunch was leaving my car at the RR station and taking the train in. Nothing like laughing at the suckers driving into Manhattan while cruising smooth into Grand Central. Every major city should be as accessible by rail as those in the Northeast.
Before watching the answer is anywhere there is a freeway. Then you make it really dark and fill it with Mario kart hazards until people stop driving Edit after finishing: I stand by what I said
I'm pretty sure lidding I405 and The Banfield (I84) in Portland would do a world of good. Several train corridors would benefit as well. That and the planned converting Broadway Bridge west onramp into a park between Union (Amtrak) Station and The Pearl neighborhood would increase parks and the promoted bike riding culture.
I-5 should become a business loop from the north I-405 interchange to the SR-18 interchange. If not removed entirely. The new I-5 main route can follow I-405 to SR-167 to SR-18 back to the current I-5
Also I’ve only found Californias call it “the I5” or “the I90” speakers from most other parts of the country omit the honorific for numbered interstates.
Then there's Chicago where it's "The Kennedy" or "The Eisenhower" or the "Dan Ryan" ... I already had enough trouble navigating without any mountains in the distance.
That offramp is dangerous, but holy crap American warning signs are so inconspicuous. There is a signal before the turn warning of the stop light, but I can't blame people who don't see it. I can blame people who take the turn too fast though.
Obviously it needs to be done (I live in Portland and I think I heard we have some proposals to do the same to some of our sections of I5), but I just really hate that people without licences who not only had to spend tax money to build/maintain the highway they can't use but also couldn't drink until 21 so the State could get road money now have to pay even more just to be allowed on the land that they had to pay to be banned from.
I'm about to comment without watching the full video yet which is totally bad practice so im sorry but im short on time - apparently I-5 in Portland, OR around the Rose Quarter may get a cap in the next 7-10 years. Long time from now and i believe the plan is mainly focused around connecting roads across the intersection lol but its not too late for ppl in my city to advocate for high ped/bike transit across the cap!
Everyone talks about the pollution and danger for pedestrians urban highways but I never see anyone talk about how bad they are for drivers too, I don't worry about getting into car accidents until I transition from rural highway to urban. Intercity traffic clogs the roadways and makes a dangerous environment with frequent merges and quick stops. They widen the highway in attempt to make it better but it just adds more local traffic.
A large 4 or 5 lanes highway could be easily replaced with a single lane train and another for bus, there will always be bottleneck's at the entrance of cities anyway, using public transports avoid that and doesn't use thousands of waste parking spaces that really screw up cities
Of all things the Union st exit would require no modifications for a lid, unlike many other exits. Beyond the fact that it has some awesome video of bad drivers, it really doesn’t belong in this video. If you’re wanting to discuss highway ramps that are bad for pedestrians, the olive way exit is worse! There is a marked crosswalk before the first stop light/sign, which is highly unusual for highway off-ramps. I’m amazed that isn’t a location of more vehicle collision of pedestrians. But perhaps its inherent danger makes pedestrians weary of it.
Cool idea, but imagine how much affordable housing you could create in areas that don't require a massive structural lid over a 12-lane freeway? Its hard to justify the expense when you could do so much more in other parts of the City. That said, if this wasn't a $billion+ project, it would be nice.
This is incredibly cool. I’ve lived in seattle my whole life, and try to keep up with stuff like this, but had no idea Sam Smith Park even existed until today lmao
I'd argue that the Interstate/freeway system isn't that great over highways and has been misused. Think about how many semi trucks you see driving on the interstate between cities. Those truck loads would be better on trains. Instead, they cause extra strain on the roads due their heavier loads. To fix this, there should be heavier taxes on moving freight by truck instead of train. We need to stop letting semi trucks get subsidized by using freeways.
I mean we could build denser housing in established neighborhoods that have existing underused services OR we could spend tons of money and ruin traffic for a decade on some pie in the sky Mega Project.
The futurama jefferies tube that bezos and musk can throw their billions at rather than into the solar winds of cold dark space. We could also devise a traffic controller system that prevents collisions, such as during the many coordinated launching sequences to the short and long distance magnetic rail based trebucket that can remove the need for repairing road surfaces that cause accidents.
@@IndustrialParrot2816, I have since brought up Google Maps to see that area in more detail, it looks 405 already cuts to the east. Cutting off I-5 would just overload 405. Good lord, that whole area is a mess!
The whole concept of lidding freeways just pisses me off. Yes, its much better than having an ugly open pit, and can revitalize neighborhoods and improve walkability and biking. But over and over again we're told that a railroad is too expensive or impossible to build. An elevated railroad is even more expensive and impossible to build. But building a several-block wide platform of concrete over a giant pit that extends for a mile or two? No problem! Anything to keep our precious car-centric infrastructure! And where is all the pollution going to be vented out? I'd hate to live near the exhaust fan for that underground gas chamber.
we do not even say the "I" here in the Northeast for our expressways. We just say the number with the direction. "95 South" for southbound I-95 for example.
Your freeways arent what's wrong with your city. It's overpriced and overly self-important. Why am I paying 40 bucks for a bowl of soup just to look at water surrounded by buildings and port hardware? There are places where you can look at mountains and nature while you eat melt in your mouth brisket for half that. You need to comb through your homeless and get the art scene back on its feet. I firmly believe the talented have given in to self medicating. Your city could be beautiful.
You act like we were were wrong to build freeways. This enabled us to have the world we have now. Obviously things change so we can think of a new way but this was not a bad idea at the time it was planned. Historical context matters.
Urban freeways were always a bad idea and were never good; the moment they tore down thousands of people's livelihoods and ripped part cities they were bad, Maybe stop devil advocate or whatever goofy shit it is you're on right now.. Also there was a point in the video where he said that the interstate highway system was mostly a good thing, it just did some fucking stupid things and he is absolutely correct, this video is extremely well put together and this is such a dumb nitpick it's unreal.
Why do you people always cry about “muh neighborhoods.” Like who the actual fuck cares. It’s not like everyone is going to suddenly trust each other and start going over peoples houses to have dinner the moment there’s more connections between muh neighborhoods.
