While the businesses themselves are vibrant and attractive, the street space that connects them is lacking a cohesive pedestrian realm. Thousands of people cross through or live, work, and play in this corridor but only about 100 cars are able to stop here and very few pedestrians can find a place to stop out of the way on the crowded sidewalks. These streets need to connect the businesses and make Pike a place people can spend their lunch, afternoon, weekend, or even night time.
Activations should be possible. It is difficult to use any of the current street space for anything fun. Without spending thousands shutting down the entire corridor a delightful activation can’t happen. This area needs to have the space to have fun not just inside but also outside.
Wider sidewalks could allow us to separate the scooters and trash space from the walking area while still making room for outdoor seating and lines. More of the streets should be dedicated to people than the roughly 30% that is today.
Loading is a mess. Since the 107 legal parking spaces can only serve a few cars each per day and short term loading zones are rarely enforced, most of the loading happens in the street or in the center lane of Pike. If this is the expectation, we should be redesigning the street to optimize for this critical loading.
The streets feel unsafe. The dark and narrow sidewalks are walled in by parked cars creating dark and scary spaces and far too much room for surprise. We should be working to incorporate the lessons from crime prevention through environmental design. We obviously need more lighting.
Some inspiration
Other parts of the city have experimented with the pedestrian realm to draw the foot traffic in
- Chophouse Row
- U District’s Ave
- U Village Mall
- Pike Place Market
Take a look at what we’ve tried before
We have and continue to pilot single day or weekend street activations in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Read more here
We’d love to hear from you
Whether you walk, bike, drive, live, or work here: we want this space to be for you. Help us shape that with the tools below. Or download this template and draw your dreams!
