Can the Waterfront be Saved?

The decision with the most potential to change the face of Seattle isn't Sound Transit or the monorail. It's not the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It isn't even on the ballot. The decision that could most radically change the way Seattle looks and feels 20 years from now is: When the viaduct comes down, what happens to the central waterfront? The answer will have ramifications from South Lake Union to West Seattle and could fundamentally alter the way Seattle is perceived.

It took a massive earthquake to jostle them into gear, but city planners have finally gotten serious about rebuilding and burying the threatened Alaskan Way Viaduct, which stands a one-in-20 chance of suffering catastrophic damage in the next 10 years. The prospect has raised some long-dormant questions: What is the future of Seattle's waterfront? And will tearing down the viaduct— noise-producer, grit-emitter, and eyesore that it is—turn the waterfront into a place where even native Seattleites will want to be? Or is the waterfront doomed to be a noisy, candy-colored tourist trap, a lollipop with a hollow center?

You can throw a rock a long way in Seattle without hitting a native who likes spending time down on the central waterfront. Sure, there are times when we're all tourists in our own city—the family heads over from Montana, and we make a beeline for the trinket shops—but for the most part, Seattle's central waterfront is more the city's overgrown backyard than its carefully tended garden. We don't open the fence very often, because we'd rather not take a look at what's back there.

Walking along the city's central waterfront, starting at the sea of concrete and automobile exhaust of the Washington State Ferry Terminal, the first thing you notice is the noise. Just being heard over the roar of auto traffic 60 feet overhead becomes a major vocal challenge, and talking in a normal voice is out of the question. The second thing you notice is that, unless you're in the market for a boat in a bottle or a basket of fish and chips, there isn't a whole lot to do down there. Sure, you can always pop into Ye Olde Curiosity Shop for peek at Sylvester the Mummy or grab a burger at Red Robin, but for the most part, our waterfront offers a lot of the same old thing: T-shirts, key chains, tchotchkes, and fast food. Not to mention an enterprising contingent of panhandlers.

Tearing down the viaduct, while it will make the area quieter and more hospitable, won't solve the waterfront's larger problems. In fact, when it comes to making the waterfront a place where the people of Seattle want to be, tearing down the viaduct might be the easy part.

Why, we might ask with the luxury of retrospect, would anyone build an elevated roadway in the first place? Back when the viaduct was built—in 1953—transportation planners were interested in efficiency, not aesthetics. Nobody thought much about the dilapidated waterfront, neglected for years as its shipping piers gradually became obsolete. The waterfront lacked an identity; and, for better or worse, the viaduct gave it one.

Today, the zoning along the waterfront has changed from manufacturing to "historic character," a designation that protects the historic piers and restricts the height of developments; prohibits offices, condos, and hotels; and limits land use to "water-related" purposes, a designation that, for better or worse, encompasses everything from the McDonald's at the ferry terminal to the Pirates Plunder novelty shop.

But while land-use patterns along the waterfront have shifted, the viaduct itself has been a constant, creating a physical wall and a psychological barrier between the city's downtown core and the water and vistas of Elliott Bay. "You can be a block away from the water and not even realize it's there, because all you notice is this big, hulking freeway, and there's not a clear path to get through it," says Cary Moon, a member of Allied Arts, an urban-design and preservation group. "It becomes the overriding experience, because the noise drowns out everything." Downtown Seattle, says Downtown District Council President Tom Graff, "does not feel like a city on the water. It feels like a city on a viaduct."

"The whole presence of the viaduct, in terms of noise and dirt and darkness, has really had a very negative impact on the waterfront," says Lee Copeland, an architect who sits on the volunteer viaduct leadership team, a group of architects, engineers, and others who are providing input to the city and state on the viaduct project. "It really does create a sense of disconnection from the waterfront itself."

But does the waterfront suck because the viaduct cuts it off from the heart of the city, or is the viaduct just an accessory to a waterfront that was, is, and always will be just for tourists? Peter Hurley, head of the Transportation Choices Coalition and a member of the leadership group, thinks the orientation toward out-of-towners, "as opposed to a mix of both residents and visitors, is tilted the wrong way." On the other hand, "the general scale of businesses is pretty good," with dozens of small businesses housed in the historic sheds that string along the waterfront.