
Proposal to Put a Park and Affordable Housing on Top of Seattle Highway - wallflower
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056362/what-if-seattle-put-a-park-and-affordable-housing-on-top-of-this-highway
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rostigerpudel
Munich has covered most of its inner city beltway:
[http://www.muenchen.de/sehenswuerdigkeiten/orte/120326.html](http://www.muenchen.de/sehenswuerdigkeiten/orte/120326.html)

The article is in german, see before-after visualizations at the bottom of the
article under "So soll es bald aussehen: Vorher - Nachher".

Current status is that traffic runs through the tunnel. Above ground, work is
in progress to make things look like in the visualization. I might go and take
some photos of what it currently looks like if anyone's interested.

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awjr
Seoul did a similar thing. [http://grist.org/infrastructure/2011-04-04-seoul-
korea-tears...](http://grist.org/infrastructure/2011-04-04-seoul-korea-tears-
down-an-urban-highway-life-goes-on/)

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peteretep
Unless I'm misreading it, Seoul simply removed the freeway

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steve2048
Here in Melbourne Australia they're looking to do the reverse, raise rail 30
feet above ground and put shared public areas below.

Initially some of these crossings were scheduled to be run below ground but
have been reconsidered due to cost.

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Symbiote
That sounds fine. There are several 19th century versions of this in London,
where a railway line was built next to or through a park [0]. Depending on the
elevation, the park may continue underneath all the viaduct arches, or just
some.

But, rail noise is considered much less annoying than road noise (British
noise pollution regulations recognise this, and allow for more rail noise
before sound barriers etc are required). I used to live on the 3rd floor
overlooking a major line in London, and the students on that side of the
building complained far less than the ones on the other side, overlooking a
middle-sized road.

A highway is a different matter though. There will be fumes from pollution,
and noise and vibration from vehicles. It's no wonder it's "affordable
housing", no-one who can afford better will want to live there.

Zoom out a couple of steps from [1] and decide if you'd want to live next to a
highway. Or, to a lesser extent, a railway with diesel trains, which have
faint lines compared to many roads, but electric railways don't show up at
all. (I can't find an equivalent map for Seattle.)

[0]
[http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4062888](http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4062888)

[1]
[http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp](http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp)

~~~
steve2048
Interesting, I would have guessed trains were worst for noise but highways
could be as bad if not worse. Maybe it's that people living next to highways
is so common that we don't think twice about it.

~~~
johnchristopher
I believe noise trains make is more regular than car and trucks accelerating
discontinuously. And they come and go less than cars. Highways have this
characteristic permanent low humming with permanent « wheezing ».

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JoeAltmaier
Right it varies all over the map. We lived on 'Triangle Place' which was a
triangle because of the railroad tracks cutting across the neighborhood in a
ditch behind the house. First night, 2AM, the train came through with that
huge searchlight panning through the trees, then the steam horn "Waaaa, Waaaa,
Wa, Waaaaaaa!"

We both sat up in bed like the dead rising, stiff as boards. After a moment I
said "Oh, Train." She said "Oh." We lay back down and went instantly back to
sleep.

Strange thing is, we never heard that train again. OR rather, it never woke us
again. It went by every night for the next year that we lived there, but it
never bothered us.

~~~
Symbiote
I woke up twice at night when I lived next to the railway in London.

The first time was at 06:01, when there was a deep rumbling. I assumed a
freight train had stopped outside for some reason, and was now accelerating
hard.

The second time was a short while later, when my bedroom smelled like a bus
depot and the sky had turned purple.

It turned out a fuel storage depot had exploded:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire)

I fled, to my university library in central London, which fortunately wasn't
covered in smoke.

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huac
pretty certain that they're tearing this part of the highway down already? the
wired article doesn't actually say _where_ the proposal is for.

i used to jump off its other end (probably 40 feet to the water?) near the
arboreteum. which was dope! but having an additional north-south highway would
probably be better. seattle desperately needs to resolve the transportation
issue.

~~~
jschwartzi
Does it have to be a highway? It might be better to add high-speed rail
between Sea-Tac and Everett. Otherwise we just end up building more garages
until our new highway is full again.

~~~
huac
on a larger scale if you can convince companies to move outside seattle, then
sure - but seattle was planned with 3 north-south highways in the city, and
the commuter-based congestion is a result

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dawnbreez
Dallas recently built a park over part of a major street (which was actually
built below street level). It worked quite well. It also attracted a lot of
food trucks, which means several smaller businesses got a quick boost of
publicity and customers. Everyone wins!

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massemphasis
How about getting a police force and law enforcement infrastructure that
actually works you bums.

~~~
dang
Please don't comment like this here. There's no substantive view that can't be
expressed civilly.

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amvueneocp
So they want to undertake a massive and expensive engineering challenge in the
middle of a busy city and then specifically not generate revenue with the
results?

