A bad idea abandoned

Weird groaning and scraping noises awoke me and my cats about 3 a.m. Saturday morning.  They continued until dawn, leaving me puzzled and somewhat nervous until I finally fell asleep.  I figured it out once I got up. The noises continued and became even louder, stranger, and more threatening yesterday.

I realized that I'd been listening, through the still night air, to the long-delayed death throes of the R. H. Thompson freeway.

Back in the 1950s, even before I-5 had been built through the downtown, Seattle city planners had decided eventually to build a second north-south freeway, this one through the eastern, residential side of the city.  They planned to name the freeway the "R. H. Thompson," in honor of the early city engineer responsible for leveling Denny Hill -- a pleasant downtown vista, crowned by the ornate, recently-opened "Washington Hotel" -- by use of high-pressure water hoses, leaving behind a flat, uninviting, and undeveloped area of parking lots for the appreciation of generations to come.

The freeway would have come up from Renton, followed Empire Way (now Martin Luther King Way), cut through the cherished Washington Arboretum, connected with then proposed east-west State Highway 520, tunneled under the Montlake Cut to University Village, and continued northward to Lake City.  Voters approved bonds to build the freeway in 1960.

To me -- and, eventually to the majority of city voters -- the most devastating aspect of this proposed route was what it would have done to the long, narrow Arboretum.  The freeway would have cut through the length of the Arboretum, and have passed roughly a hundred feet in front of my house -- although, had it been built, I doubt if I ever would have moved here. 

As noted in a 2001 HistoryLink essay, as the 1960s progressed, city residents observed the enormous disruption to city residences and topography caused by construction of the I-5 and I-90 freeways.  Environmentalists and civic activists protested vigorously.  In 1970, the city council removed the freeway from the city's comprehensive plan.  And in 1972, voters by a 71 percent majority formally terminated the project and revoked the authorization for the still unissued bonds.

That was 42 years ago.  What did all of that have to do with the noises that awoke me in the night?

When State Route 520 from I-5 to the east side of Lake Washington was built in 1963, plans for the R. H. Thompson were still very much alive.  Therefore, shortly before reaching Lake Washington, a network of entrance and exit ramps were built in anticipation of the connection between SR 520 and the RHT.  Those ramps -- the "ramps to nowhere" -- have remained there ever since, serving primarily as illegal diving boards from which kids dive each summer into the waters around Foster Island.

Much to the discomfort of Montlake residents like myself, SR 520 -- about eight blocks north of my house -- is being widened to carry more traffic.  A large number of trees have been cut down from the northern edge of the present freeway.  It does not appear that the widening of the freeway -- unlike the proposed R. H. Thompson -- will require the removal of existing residences, but a number of people living in rather nice homes on the northern side are going to find the woody area behind their houses replaced by the newly-added lanes of SR 520.

As part of the work on SR 520, the vestigial connections to the R. H. Thompson are being removed.  SR 520 was closed over the weekend.  That impressive racket that shocked me awake in the night was the sound of demolition as the overpasses and ramps are dismantled. 

From the looks of things last night, it will take more than this one weekend to complete the job.  I can tolerate the noise.  I can consider it music.  It marks an end to a city "improvement" that thankfully was never undertaken.  Unlike San Francisco, we didn't have to build our own "Embarcadero" before we decided we hated it and tore it down.