Other Sites of Mine

The Seattle Center is about one mile north of Downtown Seattle, and on the west side of Seattle Center is Key Arena, a venue that hosts various events, was the former home of the Seattle Supersonics NBA basketball team, now moved to Oklahoma City, and is still the home of the Seattle Storm, a WNBA women’s basketball team.

Just south of Downtown Seattle are two sports stadiums: CenturyLink Field, the home of the Seattle Seahawks NFL football team and the Seattle Sounders soccer team; and Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners major league baseball team. Nearby is a railroad station, King Steet Station, a terminal for both Amtrak and the Sounder commuter train, and there is also a station for Link light rail.

Now there is a proposal to build a new NBA basketball arena in this same area. One major problem is traffic congestion before and after games, which is expected to be worse if the new arena is built. There are fears by some that traffic congestion will seriously impact truck and rail traffic serving nearby shipping terminals and that this could drive shipping business away from Seattle, costing the region jobs and money.

One of my suggestions is to build new parking lots away from the port area and use mass transit to move people between the parking lots and the games. This idea would not only add additional parking at remote locations but would also eliminate some of the parking near the sports facilities, thereby reducing current congestion.

Another one of my suggestions is to build a monorail that would link the sports facilities area on the south with Seattle Center (including Key Arena) to the north. Parking facilities could be both to the north and the south. To me the best route for the monorail would be that of the formerly planned Green Line, except that north of Pine Street it would continue north along Second Avenue instead of Fifth Avenue, and would continue along the western part of Seattle Center to a station near Key Arena.