Six decades ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (WSDOT) set up an office to begin clear­ing land for the “Seat­tle Free­way,” a mas­sive project intend­ed to cre­ate new right of way for auto­mo­bile traf­fic through the city’s cen­tral core along with the neigh­bor­hoods to the north and south of it.

Shield for Inter­state 5

Over the span of sev­er­al years, con­struc­tion crews relo­cat­ed or demol­ished thou­sands of struc­tures on 4,500 parcels of land, lit­er­al­ly split­ting the city in half in the process.

The result was a twen­ty and a half mile artery for auto­mo­biles stretch­ing from one edge of the city to another.

How­ev­er, it would not be known as the “Seat­tle Free­way,” nor would it be signed with a tra­di­tion­al state or “U.S.” route num­ber, for Con­gress and Pres­i­dent Eisen­how­er had agreed in the late 1950s on leg­is­la­tion to cre­ate a new inter­state high­way sys­tem for the Unit­ed States.

It would take a cou­ple more decades, but by the end of the 1970s, Inter­state 5’s ini­tial build­out was com­plete. Des­ig­nat­ed by Con­gress as the main north-south route serv­ing the Unit­ed States’ Left Coast, Inter­state 5 is the only high­way that goes from the Cana­di­an bor­der at its north­ern end all the way to the Mex­i­can bor­der at its south­ern end, with a length of 1,381.29 miles/2,222.97 kilometers.

I‑5’s Seat­tle sec­tion is among its busiest. The twen­ty-mile Emer­ald City seg­ment nowa­days sees lev­els of traf­fic that would have been unimag­in­able in the 1950s when it was designed. The same is true of I‑5 seg­ments in oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, like Los Ange­les or Port­land, where I‑5 cross­es the Colum­bia Riv­er.

Despite I‑5’s impor­tance to Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, and the Pacif­ic North­west, it is falling apart. Decades of heavy use and inad­e­quate main­te­nance have left the high­way in increas­ing­ly bad shape. The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, aware of the need for action, has respond­ed with a series of leg­isla­tive­ly-autho­rized projects that it col­lec­tive­ly calls “Revive I‑5″.

“Com­plet­ing this crit­i­cal preser­va­tion work will take more than a decade, into the 2030s,” WSDOT explains on its project web­site, refer­ring to the dif­fi­cul­ty of work­ing on the high­way while also keep­ing it open to traffic.

“Man­ag­ing traf­fic and con­ges­tion dur­ing pave­ment preser­va­tion work requires care­ful and coor­di­nat­ed plan­ning that con­sid­ers time of year, region­al spe­cial events, changes to the tran­sit sys­tem and oth­er state or local road clo­sures. All sched­uled lane and ramp clo­sures for these preser­va­tion projects are care­ful­ly timed. How­ev­er, emer­gency repairs could hap­pen at any time. Sched­uled work reduces the chances that an inci­dent requir­ing emer­gency repairs may occur.”

As with the State Route 520 float­ing bridge replace­ment project and Alaskan Way Viaduct replace­ment tun­nel project, WSDOT is in a race against the clock. Wash­ing­ton State is earth­quake coun­try and a tem­blor could strike at any time, with lit­tle to no warn­ing, caus­ing mas­sive dam­age to I‑5 and oth­er infrastructure.

While I‑5’s integri­ty and future is often dis­cussed at state, coun­ty, or city trans­porta­tion com­mit­tee work ses­sions and at WSDOT staff meet­ings, it gets far less atten­tion than it should in the press and in oth­er settings.

As part of our July 2021 sur­vey of the Emer­ald City elec­torate, we decid­ed to ask Seat­tle vot­ers a series of ques­tions about Inter­state 5 ear­li­er this sum­mer to ascer­tain their aware­ness of the facil­i­ty’s seis­mic risks and access improve­ment needs, and their enthu­si­asm for mod­ern­iz­ing the highway.

First, we asked about aware­ness of I‑5’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to quakes. We includ­ed a map with our ques­tion show­ing high­ways in King Coun­ty, I‑5 includ­ed, that are crit­i­cal to region­al mobil­i­ty and at risk of earth­quake dam­age. We asked respon­dents how con­cerned they are about I‑5’s resilience, and found that the vast major­i­ty of Seat­tle vot­ers are either some­what or very concerned.

QUESTION: The map below depicts the state of risk of major high­ways in our area to severe dam­age in a major earth­quake. After review­ing the map, please indi­cate how con­cerned you are about the capa­bil­i­ty of Inter­state 5 to sur­vive a major earth­quake in Seat­tle and be avail­able for emer­gency use.

ANSWERS:

• Con­cerned: 82% 
  • Very con­cerned: 38%
  • Some­what con­cerned: 44%
• Not wor­ried: 13% 
  • Not wor­ried: 10%
  • Not wor­ried at all: 3%
• Unsure: 5%

Note: The map above has been updat­ed slight­ly for clar­i­ty in prepa­ra­tion for pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion since the poll field­ed in mid-July, but is oth­er­wise iden­ti­cal to the ver­sion that poll respon­dents saw when tak­ing the survey. 

Over eight in ten vot­ers described them­selves as con­cerned, ver­sus just 13% who stat­ed they were not wor­ried. Only 5% said they were unsure.

Most Seat­tleites clear­ly appre­ci­ate that I‑5 is at risk of fail­ure in an earth­quake, which is not sur­pris­ing, but nev­er­the­less reassuring.

Next, we asked vot­ers about improv­ing I‑5’s flow through Seat­tle’s down­town and First Hill neigh­bor­hoods. In par­tic­u­lar, we want­ed to know how vot­ers would react to the idea of relo­cat­ing some of the numer­ous entry and exit ramps that make this sec­tion of the high­way need­less­ly treach­er­ous to navigate.

We found plen­ty of enthusiasm:

QUESTION: The map below shows the entry and exit ramps to Inter­state 5 in down­town Seattle.

After review­ing the map, please spec­i­fy whether you would sup­port or oppose relo­cat­ing some of the Inter­state 5 ramps in down­town Seat­tle if this were deter­mined to be fea­si­ble for improv­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion and safe­ty issues.

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 77% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 43%
  • Some­what sup­port: 34%
• Oppose: 12%
  • Some­what oppose: 6%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 6%
• Unsure: 6%

Note: The map above has been updat­ed slight­ly for clar­i­ty in prepa­ra­tion for pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion since the poll field­ed in mid-July, but is oth­er­wise iden­ti­cal to the ver­sion that poll respon­dents saw when tak­ing the survey. 

More than three-fourths of respon­dents indi­cat­ed sup­port for relo­cat­ing ramps.

Final­ly, we asked respon­dents to weigh in on I‑5’s future in their own words.

We offered the fol­low­ing as a ques­tion prompt:

QUESTION: Should the state pri­or­i­tize mod­ern­iz­ing the stretch of Inter­state 5 that runs through Seat­tle, from the north­ern city lim­it with Shore­line to the south­ern city lim­it with Tukwila?

ANSWERS:

• 40% wrote sup­port­ive answers
• 30% did not express a clear stance or made oth­er comments
• 18% indi­cat­ed opposition
• 12% expressed ambiva­lence or said they did­n’t know

The plu­ral­i­ty who wrote sup­port­ive answers expressed a lot of enthusiasm.

“100% would sup­port mod­ern­iz­ing the stretch of I‑5. It’s been a huge prob­lem with traf­fic and for peo­ple com­mut­ing to and out of Seat­tle,” wrote one.

“I‑5 is in such bad shape and neg­a­tive­ly dis­sects the city,” not­ed anoth­er. “It needs to be redone to bet­ter serve trav­el­ers, reunite neigh­bor­hoods it now divides and be cli­mate neutral.”

“Def­i­nite­ly need [I‑5 to be] more tran­sit ready and earth­quake safe,” agreed yet anoth­er respon­dent. “Sin­gle car dri­ving should be dis­cour­aged and the city needs to great­ly improve mass transit.”

A fourth wrote: “The state absolute­ly needs to pri­or­i­tize this project. The area is so con­gest­ed at near­ly all times of the day. It needs to be made safer also by mak­ing sure peo­ple can’t throw items from the over­pass­es onto cars below.”

“I would take pride in Seat­tle if it was one of the only cities in Amer­i­ca to actu­al­ly have its infra­struc­ture up to and safer than code,” said a fifth, who iden­ti­fied them­selves as a young Seat­tleite. “Mak­ing it more tran­sit friend­ly may be worth it, but upgrad­ing it so it’s safer than America’s bridges gen­er­al­ly is vital.”

Many of the small num­ber in oppo­si­tion sug­gest­ed it sim­ply was­n’t feasible.

“At this point just wait for the quake it will hap­pen before any con­struc­tion project could ever be com­plet­ed,” one respon­dent said.

“Can’t do every­thing,” wrote another.

“I do not con­sid­er this a pri­or­i­ty. We have more, seri­ous issues that need greater atten­tion, urgency, and fund­ing than cre­at­ing more con­ve­nience on our free­ways,” said a third, appar­ent­ly hav­ing inter­pret­ed “mod­ern­iza­tion” to mean “widen­ing”.

Oth­er respon­dents called for fix­ing the West Seat­tle Bridge first. (SDOT cur­rent­ly expects to par­tial­ly reopen the bridge to traf­fic next year.)

And still oth­er respon­dents expressed inter­est in how WSDOT would do the work with­out cre­at­ing addi­tion­al traf­fic prob­lems for I‑5 users.

“How will you min­i­mize dura­tion and sever­i­ty of traf­fic dis­rup­tions dur­ing this mod­ern­iza­tion process?” one respon­dent won­dered. “I‑5 in Taco­ma has been under con­tin­u­ous con­struc­tion for 10+ years.”

(WSDOT actu­al­ly has a pret­ty detailed traf­fic mit­i­ga­tion plan for the work it’s already got fund­ing to do, which is one rea­son why the work has such a long time­frame. Still, as with all con­struc­tion projects, there will be disruptions.)

Our poll of 617 like­ly August 2021 Seat­tle vot­ers was in the field through Mon­day, July 12th, through Thurs­day, July 15th. All respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online. The poll was con­duct­ed by Change Research for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

One of the themes run­ning through the open-end­ed respons­es was a desire for more and bet­ter tran­sit. Even though our prompt was about mod­ern­iz­ing I‑5, quite a few respon­dents spoke of want­i­ng to fin­ish build­ing out Sound Tran­sit’s Link light rail sys­tem and pur­sue poli­cies that reduce auto­mo­bile dependence.

That’s fresh and use­ful evi­dence that Seat­tleites under­stand that an auto-cen­tric trans­porta­tion sys­tem is nei­ther sus­tain­able or desirable.

The future is mul­ti­modal. Bet­ter tran­sit will lib­er­ate the Emer­ald City from car depen­dence, enabling more and more trips to be tak­en by walk­ing, bicy­cling, rid­ing the bus or train, or a com­bi­na­tion of all three. With that said, respon­dents do agree that we must invest in I‑5’s future. Mak­ing the high­way seis­mi­cal­ly safe will improve our abil­i­ty to recov­er from a major dis­as­ter and will pro­tect all users of the high­way, includ­ing those in bus­es as well as cars and trucks.

Only a frac­tion of what is need­ed to ful­ly mod­ern­ize I‑5 has been appro­pri­at­ed so far by the Leg­is­la­ture. Law­mak­ers are cur­rent­ly con­tem­plat­ing autho­riz­ing more funds for I‑5 by enact­ing a new trans­porta­tion pack­age that would build on the invest­ments approved in Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton six years ago.

Mean­while, Democ­rats in Con­gress are try­ing to reach agree­ment on leg­is­la­tion request­ed by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden that would make major invest­ments in infra­struc­ture along with Amer­i­ca’s social con­tract. If those efforts suc­ceed, I‑5 will almost cer­tain­ly be one of the facil­i­ties that benefits.