In Seattle, a vision to ‘undo harms’ of the Interstate system unfolds.
When completed in the 1960s as a coastal link from the southern border of Canada to the northern border of Mexico, Interstate 5 cut a swath through Seattle that served to separate urban neighborhoods that, for generations, were parts of a greater whole. As with cities across the country, localized isolation was the price to be paid for the nationwide connectivity conferred by the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and the economic boom it helped to unleash.
More than half a century later, a Seattle-based partnership is seeking to remedy some of that damage by capping a mile-long section of urban asphalt with what would be the country’s biggest freeway lid.
“Undoing past harms of freeways has become an important thing across the country,” says John Feit, co-chair of the group Lid I-5. “The goal,” Feit told Site Selection in January, “is to reconnect people and places to the largest extent possible.”
Supporters freely acknowledge that their dream represents a heavy lift, one certain to require decades of planning and construction and massive public investment. But proof of concept is there.
Seattle, Washington’s economic engine, already is home to the greatest concentration of freeway lids in the country, numbering about a dozen. Its 5.2-acre Freeway Park, completed in 1976, is believed to have been the nation’s first. Built over seven years at a cost of some $23 million, today it is downtown Seattle’s biggest public park, considered a landmark of urban landscape architecture. Seattle, says Feit, an architect by trade, “has demonstrated that freeway lids are a viable strategy to expand public land, reduce pollution and enhance community connections.”
I-5 Lid Phase One
Rendering courtesy of Lid I-5
More Housing, Businesses, Tax Revenue
A 2020 feasibility report by the Seattle Office of Planning and Community estimated the I-5 Lid could support up to 13,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs during construction alone and contribute more than $3 billion of annual economic activity. Since then, however, planners have nearly doubled the lid’s projected footprint to more than 40 acres, extending it southward into Seattle’s Chinatown International District, arguably the neighborhood most impacted by Interstate 5. The plan’s outsized economic impact derives from the fact that, unlike Freeway Park and other such lids, it is envisioned as much more than just green space.
“We want the details to come out of what the Seattle community wants to see,” Feit says. “But I think it’s fair to say that it will have not just parks but buildings and other physical infrastructure, including streets to reconnect these neighborhoods. In that sense, streets will be incredibly important.”
Supporters also envision new housing and businesses sprouting atop the lid, injecting vitality and opening sources of public revenue.
“If we create another 40 acres of land,” Feit says, “that’s 40 acres that are suddenly on the property tax rolls.”
“The goal is to reconnect people and places to the largest extent possible.”
— John Feit, Co-chair, Lid I-5
A Long Row to Hoe
Along 275 miles from the Canadian border in the north to Oregon in the south, I-5 in Washington supports more than 58,000 jobs and generates $5.9 billion in annual revenue, according to a report by the I-5 System Partnership, a statewide stakeholder group that’s advocating for improvements to the corridor. As with other federal highways laid in the 1960s, the challenges are many, including bottlenecks, cracked and crumbling pavement and bridges susceptible to seismic events.
“This Interstate is the backbone of Washington’s transportation system, powering our economy, linking statewide markets to our ports, connecting people to jobs, goods and each other,” states a Partnership report. “I-5’s lack of reliability threatens Washington’s ability to compete globally and the quality of life for the region. A lasting change is needed.”
To address those problems and plan for growth across the rapidly expanding region, the Washington Legislature in 2022 authorized $40 million for the development of a far-reaching Interstate 5 Master Plan.
“The I-5 Master Plan,” according to a report by the Washington State Department of Transportation, “will inform future I-5 investment decisions that meet the demands of future growth, are equitable and resilient, move people and goods safely and efficiently, connect communities, leverage emerging technologies and support a thriving economy.”
Feit views the statewide attention being devoted to I-5 as a boon to the lid project.
“Ours is a long process,” he says, “and projects of this magnitude are particularly prickly in Seattle, because we’re a progressive West Coast city and we like to have a group hug and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ which adds additional layers of complexity and time. With something like this,” he says, “you need to be at the start of the conversation to get the outcomes you want. And the conversation needs to be, ‘How can our reimagining of Interstate 5 lead to an improved urban environment in Seattle?’ ”
