The Gates Foundation broke ground on its massive new headquarters north of downtown Seattle last week. The predictable reaction: Oh no, traffic is going to get worse.
The foundation is kicking in some money for transportation fixes, but that’s ultimately the city’s job. To prevent gridlock, the city needs a formal plan — with time milestones — so development can grow around the future infrastructure. Mayor Greg Nickels wants to reconnect city streets across Aurora Avenue (when? with what funding?) and to extend the short city streetcar line currently under construction (when? it doesn’t appear to be in the public plan).
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2 responses to “Gates HQ project starts, traffic to worsen”
Wasn’t the re-connecting of the street grid lumped in with the original viaduct-tunnel proposal? I think it got scrapped when the Mayor needed to start cutting corners.
It’s definitely slipped from the news amid talk of a cheaper tunnel. I haven’t seen a new site on the 4-lane tunnel but there was this story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003528295_viaduct17m0.html. Reconnecting those streets is one step that would help move traffic with a surface-and-transit option.