rail – Spatialities

As part of a recent historical research project, I georeferenced a ton of old plans and maps of the University of Washington campus and surrounding neighborhood. One of the things that has stood out in my mind about this project is the old transportation patterns, and how our society relied so much more heavily on rail to get around. The University District was served by several streetcar lines in addition to the rail line that was used by passenger trains–now the route of the Burke-Gilman Trail.

We are slowly returning to an era of mass transportation. This 1920 map shows the location of at least two streetcar lines, as well as the old heavy-gauge NPRR line and depot. I have overlaid the alignment of the Sound Transit North Link subway and platform location of the new University of Washington Station. The detail that jumps out is the location of the old streetcar turn-around loop, now the location of the subway station. We’re looping back around to an abandoned form of transportation that should never have been abandoned. This time, we’re making sure that the passage of the rail cars isn’t hindered by private cars.

I sat on a bus for over half an hour yesterday, getting from the U-District to downtown. I’m looking forward to the eight-minute ride that the subway will enable.

Wallingford is my neighborhood. I’ve lived here for over ten years, commuting out to Redmond for the first year via scooter and bus. After that, I started working at the University of Washington, with an exact mile commute, door-to-door. I still take my ratty old scooter, but I’ll just as often walk, bike, or bus.

For those of us who work at the UW, Wallingford is in an ideal location–easily walkable, if you don’t mind traversing I-5 and its associated on and off-ramps. You can quickly bike there if you don’t mind the cranky and sometimes aggressive car commuters. The bus is great, except for the winding, plodding 16 and the always-late, always SRO-packed 44. In addition to these indignities to the non-car commuter, Wallingford is more isolated, transportation-wise, than its U-District and Fremont neighbors. This paper, which I co-wrote with two other authors, creates a plan to remedy these problems. It deals with both land-use and transportation issues, which should always be planned in concert, but sadly often aren’t. We focused on enhancing connections to neighboring communities, as well as to downtown Seattle, decreasing the isolation of the neighborhood and allowing for a more compact and energetic local business district. My contributions were the introduction, land-use, rail, and summary chapters.

Wallingford Transportation Plan

Spatialities

Tag Archives: rail

UW Transportation, Past and Future

A Transportation Plan for Wallingford, Seattle