Mayor Bruce Harrell was at the Capitol Hill Farmers Market Sunday as part of a tour of the neighborhood (Image: CHS)
City officials and the Capitol Hill community advocacy group behind the initiative are backing off a report that any plans for a so-called Capitol Hill Superblock pedestrianization plan for Pike/Pine are moving forward.
Mayor Bruce Harrell was dispatched to the neighborhood Sunday for meetings with local businesses to hear from some of the bars, restaurants, and stores that would be impacted by the plans. Harrell’s office said the visit was part of the mayor’s new “One Seattle Community Connections” efforts with stops in more neighborhoods to come.
Erin Fried, deputy director of the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict advocacy group that organized a late October tour with new Seattle Department of Transportation director Greg Spotts to discuss the Superblock concept which would transform the core streets of the Pike/Pine nightlife and retail district around venues like Neumos and stores like Elliott Bay Book Company into a car-free, parking-free walking zone, says a report from development and safe streets advocacy and media outlet The Urbanist detailing plans for the Superblock has set off conversations — but little else, at this point.
Fried said talks about pedestrianization in the Pike/Pine core are “a need being surfaced over and over again” but said her organization and backer affordable housing developer Community Roots Housing “need to connect with small businesses” to make the initiative happen. The EcoDistrict “doesn’t use the term superblock,” Fried said.
Nagle is for parking (Image: CHS)
The EcoDistrict’s Fried is a board member at The Urbanist.
“The pandemic interrupted plans to advance the Capitol Hill superblock sooner, but it appears a window of opportunity is opening up now,” Urbanist editor Doug Trumm wrote about the project.
According to people familiar with the situation, the EcoDistrict tour with Spotts and the Urbanist report on the project brought swift complaints from Pike/Pine businesses concerned about street access and parking in the busy area just south of Cal Anderson Park.
By last week, any efforts around the initiative were being backpedaled.
An SDOT spokesperson tells CHS the “neighborhood walk” was “a part of Director Spott’s ongoing listening tour responding to invitations to experience and discuss the streetscape.”
“Greg is interested in learning about innovative urban planning concepts and enjoyed the discussion,” the spokesperson said. “SDOT doesn’t have a position on this concept, but is eager to continue talking to Capitol Hill community members and businesses to learn more about their perspectives and ideas to support the vibrancy of this neighborhood.”
Ideas for making Pike/Pine’s nightlife and entertainment core friendlier for pedestrians have come and gone — typically in a cloud of local business opposition.
A focus area for pedestrianization in early Capitol Hill Superblock planning three years ago
In the mid 2010s, the city experimented with closing E Pike to motor vehicles on a series of summer Saturday nights. CHS reported here in 2019 on the first early pushes boosted by Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda for a broader approach echoing with the Superilles of Barcelona. When Mosqueda opted to keep her council seat and not jump into a race for the mayor’s office, it seemed like the initiative might grind to a halt.
But the concept lived on and became one of the initiatives on the table for the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict as Donna Moodie, a longtime Seattle restaurateur and owner of 14th and Union’s Marjorie, was named executive director of the group.
Sunday, while they had the mayor’s ear, some business owners were expected to speak out against the pedestrianization plan if there aren’t better efforts to include nightlife and retail communities.
Mosqueda, meanwhile, serves at the council’s budget chair and currently has her hands full trying to finalize the city’s 2023 spending plan amid the latest predicted downturn in tax revenue.
UPDATE: We’ve asked her office for more about the councilmember’s take on the revived superblock efforts and the tour she attended and will update if we hear back. UPDATE x2: The Capitol Hill Superblock is not dead. We’ll have more from Mosqueda’s office soon on what the next steps will look like on what would be a long legislative road to kicking a real plan into gear. It’s a framework that could be applied across the city — not just on Capitol Hill — but the Pike/Pine opportunity will remain a focus for possible implementation, CHS is told.
SDOT seems most geared up to take on smaller projects in the neighborhood’s core like the transition of Pike and Pine intersections without traffic lights to full 4-way stops between I-5 and 15th Ave. A much larger undertaking will start construction in early 2023 below the core upper area to add new bike lanes, and wider sidewalks along Pike and Pine and transform both streets into a one-way couplet between the waterfront and Bellevue Ave.
While a broad transformation of core blocks of Pike/Pine near Cal Anderson is off the table, there is one street seemingly everyone agrees needs change.
Nagle Place has emerged as a better possible target for an overhaul. Four years ago, there was hope new development replacing the old Bonney Watson mortuary would help enliven Nagle along with the new energy from nearby development above Capitol Hill Station. But Nagle uses these days are limited mostly to street parking — and street disorder. The underutilized area has also been a recent encampment sweep target.
But Nagle, it seems, just can’t catch a break. The mayor’s tour had been planned to include a stop Sunday to learn more about Nagle’s potential but the time with the EcoDistrict’s Moodie was cut due to scheduling issues.
Harrell’s tour, meanwhile, ended up focused on issues well beyond any superblocks with the mayor hearing small business worries about costs, safety, services for mental illness, and gun violence. We’ll have more soon on the mayor’s Capitol Hill visit.
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Surprise! We’ll come back to it in five years when it’s too late and wish we’d done it five years ago. Like most of our transportation decisions.
I support this idea, but test it out on a few more weekends and find out where to put the extra traffic flow. Not that much gets through on a Saturday night on Pike anyway! Problem is there’s so much obstruction already for anyone going east-west through that area, with Cal Anderson on one side and complicated Madison intersections on the other. Perhaps they can streamline Union to have that be the easy detour.
They should do a pilot for a week and see how it goes. Block the streets to all traffic and then follow up with a survey to businesses and residents. I fully support this idea, but it may be more successful if the western border is 10th rather than Broadway. Here’s hoping this actually happens, here and in other parts of the city, sooner rather than later. We are lagging behind Europe and other areas of the world!
Excellent idea. Let’s all write our councilor, mayor and two at large councilors to suggest this。There are some great ideas that come up here (this is one of them) but if they don’t make it to the inbox of SOC they will die.
Mayor Harrell came to a four-block zone where hundreds of people live and only talked to businesses? huh. somehow, sadly, not surprising. Why do their opinions count more?
I live in the potential ‘superblock’ zone.
It’s no surprise that businesses want car traffic. the neighborhood is overrun by people from out of town, peacocking late at night in their cars.
It also makes it crappy and dangerous-feeling late at night. It’s changed a lot since I moved to the neighbhorhood. it’s a shame that the city has no interest in talking to residents.
Same here…
As for business? There would be more business because the street venders/food trucks can set up. Less noise as well. No more fire/polices etc. blowing by.
Single families aren’t coming into cap hill. It’s the dumb ass college kids
Am I the only one who would like to see the Pine St area blocked off by the BLM mural be put to use for something, like a garden with seating?
with frequent traffic and buses going by on each side? not where I’d choose to sit with a park right across the street.
Honestly, that’s what Cal Anderson Park is for.
Guess I better relook at it. Appears to be removing transit options on Broadway from Pine to Union and along Union, too? If so, it’s yet another ableism nightmare idea for me. Wish I could move away before/if it comes to fruition.
no, that wasn’t the plan; it was to leave broadway and union intact and shut off traffic on 10th, 11th and pine.
I rarely walk around Capitol Hill anymore, the drivers there have gotten way too aggressive on Pike/Pine and Broadway especially on Fridays/Saturdays.
A lot more people driving in from the Single family zoned wastelands now that “the pandemic is over” who don’t understand that we take stopping for pedestrians seriously found these parts.
I don’t think the city will do anything about it besides the tiny marginal reforms the status quo fetishizing Harrelites love. Useless Bruce only wants to do sweeps and cover street art with gray paint. Everything else he had to be dragged into by the ear.
Honestly we should just make the super block ourselves, blocking traffic over a weekend would take very little effort from like 20 people.
With the crowd that comes in on the weekend, I wouldn’t be confident they wouldn’t just plow through a roadblock.
This is a great idea. At a certain point, community action is the only option when the mayor doesn’t care about people getting hit by cars.
Yup..Gotta keep your eyes and ears peeled or get hit.
This seems like a topic that Mosqueda and Sawant could / should unite behind.
HaHa! You actually think that Sawant cares about any issues in her district? She has shown time and time again that she does not!
Agreed, her absence in helping local businesses during lockdown is telling that she is very much all talk that will make her look good. I’m hoping a better progressive candidate will step up to vote for, then maybe great ideas like this will have a bigger push for.
I watch multiple near misses caused by driver aggression and inattention each night from my apartment in the pike/pine area. Drivers are getting more and more reckless all the time – revving engines, incessant honking, speeding, blocking intersections and crosswalks.They make the neighborhood feel way more unsafe than other usually cited factors, tbh. Why weren’t residents’ voices given some consideration?
You are right Amy and this is happening all over the city no matter what neighborhood you’re in. It’s due to lack of police for patrols. It’s not just young people but it seems people from all ages and walks of life are running stop signs, driving overly fast, not stopping for pedestrians, driving through red lights etc etc.
it’s certainly not from lack of police. we’ve had issues in the blocks surrounding the east precinct for decades, as the force has grown. they don’t do “patrols” or “community policing” the way we imagine it ought to be done, so you have racers without license plates doing donuts ONE BLOCK from police HQ.
blocking just the “block party” area off to cars on weekends would stop a lot of dangerous stuff.
TRUTH!
Yeah I would love to see community policing here. When people and the police know each other and they are a constant presence it stops a lot of bad behavior and actually helps people. We are so far short of the number of officers we need for a city this size compared there is no way they can do it.
I have never seen police show any interest in these sorts of patrols, and I don’t trust them to do so in an equitable way. I think we need better infrastructure that prevents dangerous, anti-social driving behavior.
I think there are police that are interested, I know a few, but the city isn’t interested and the SPD answers to the city’s leaders and if the police are know the people in the area and are on regular patrols the results are much more equitable. It’s been tested and proven in other countries and even some US cities. That said, no matter what infrastructure you build people will drive dangerously unless there is a punishment. Sad but true.
Honestly I suspect we are in agreement here, though perhaps not on the cause. We both want less petty crime and better, more responsive police presence for serious crimes. That’s the goal of defunding the police – restructuring it so we have the right number of people for each aspect of a complex and IMO necessary job. It’s insane to send armed men to every situation and insane that we don’t have informed, empowered officers of more diverse skills and purposes working with communities to understand and address root causes of crimes. Not to mention the justice system but that’s a whole other kettle of fish…
Call it whatever you want, this area is such fantastic part of the neighborhood, but it’s just overrun with reckless drivers especially in the evenings. Seems like with an ounce of creativity it could be made a better place to walk, spend time, AND better for business.
I live above Walgreens and couldn’t agree more. I feel like I am the luckiest person on Earth. Low income housing is desperately needed as well as business. We can do both.
I’m on E Pine and Broadway. I support whatever will bring some safeness to the area here. I See everything. Hit and runs. Gun fire. Serious mental health crises. Street racing. You name it. On Friday and Saturday it’s packed with pedestrians and scooters.
It seems to me the plan could include one, one way lane for cars with some long, shallow speed bumps and a 15 MPH limit. The cops and the Fire dept. use E. Pine south route allll the time. The pedestrian zone ends that. However, no more sirens blowing by my apartment on the 1 bed corner with 16 windows in my living, dining and kitchen area. Anyone trying to say noise will increase is wrong. It’s the opposite by a painfully obvious margin.
Also…There is room for more street venders for sure. The market will bear the added competition. More street venders and trucks etc. would be nice.
Whew! The neighborhood almost might have gotten more livable. SDOT can’t allow that to happen.
Sounds like you all want to live in one of those wasteland, single family zones you so flagrantly disparage. You complain about traffic, sirens, too many outsiders in the neighborhood. Gated community anyone?
Ummm…It IS single family around here.
Lot’s of low income housing.
Nah, I was more thinking of modern European city centers — you know, kinda like the ones in Spain where this whole Superblock idea was inspired by?
@Glenn, you seem to be laboring under the misconception that density is incompatible with civilized traffic, low noise a high quality of life. They’re not.