Anyone working on designing the post-viaduct waterfront should have this Boston Globe article stapled to their desk. The Rose Kennedy Greenway was built over the “big dig.”
The Greenway, by contrast, is placeless desert. It’s a series of oversize shapeless spaces, none of which seems to have a purpose. Some are paved with stone, some with concrete, some have trees, some have flowers. It all feels random. It doesn’t look as if it’s been shaped by a creative mind. There are things to look at but nothing to do.
Only twice did I feel I was in anything I’d define as a memorable place. One was a lovely circle of budding trees around a sculpture, opposite Rowes Wharf. The other was a curving space in Chinatown, with a sense of enclosure and a respite from bigness.
As for the rest, it’s as if we had decided, when we tore down the overhead green-painted Central Artery, that we would memorialize it on the ground. We’d make another big green disruption through the heart of the city.
Here’s the initial rendering for the post-viaduct downtown waterfront:
I realize that all that pink is planner-speak for “TBD,” but still, it seems all too easy to replicate Boston’s mistake here at the other end of I-90.
Top photo of the Rose Kennedy Greenway
The photo the Globe ran showed part of the problem- at some points the park has an arterial street on both sides. I think the biggest danger to the waterfront is letting the street through. It would be incredibly easy for the street to become a 6-lane arterial.
The design process and requests for proposals are moving really quickly this month for the Central Waterfront. I don’t live in Seattle, but if I did I would certainly be looking for meetings to attend and pressure groups to join.
Probably the reclaimed ( or air-rights) park in Boston has some restrictive covenanting resulting from a public fear that, otherwise, the land would be given to private businesses under sweetheart deals.
In any case, there are deadlines in May, and the planning will all be happening soon, so, be there or be square.
A lot of us would be happy just to have the Viaduct gone.
Our Waterfront already has lots of attractions that get plenty of pedestrians, unlike Boston’s greenway, but it still does run the risk of becoming a dead zone. They should definitely run Waterfront Streetcar tracks there to the west of the street (it’d be nicer than having it in the middle of the street, especially when there’s no cross-streets, and it would break up the huge plaza). They could also create a transit museum somewhere along there that would be combined with a new WFS barn, with exhibits on Seattle’s old streetcar, cable car, and interurban systems, and about the Mosquito fleet and the development of rapid transit plans over the last century too. That would be awesome. Maybe that’s a place where they can put a Chihuly museum lol.
They should also strongly encourage street food all along there. That would certainly provide an attraction to the space.
I agree there is a real danger of creating something like the Rose Kennedy Greenway on the Waterfront here.
I will say bringing back the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar in some form should help prevent that some.
I think we can look to the Embarcadero in San Francisco for at least one idea on what can be done. While it has problems as a public space it still is pretty nice and has historic streetcars running along it.
I’m a little miffed that the current excuse for not restoring the streetcar is that “there isn’t enough space” which is utter BS since it was quite successful with a much narrower ROW.
Things could be a lot worse than the Boston result or the architect’s imagining of the future. Currently there are six traffic lanes and parking on the surface at the central waterfront. It’s not going to be easy to pry any of that out of the hands of the car and truck drivers.
Of course, it would be a lot easier if McGinn could get with the program and support greening the waterfront, sharply cutting and limiting the traffic, and restoring the George Benson Streetcar, with an extension to Pier 90 to support cruise ship traffic without buses. But he hasn’t and probably won’t- unless some poll convinces him the public demands it.