Thursday’s Seattle Times has the details on the car-free days in Volunteer Park:
Volunteer Park: Western Loop on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. between Aug. 4 and Sept. 29. On weekends, the loop will be closed to cars from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Aug. 9, 17, 24, 31 and Sept. 7, 13, 21 and 27.
Regardless of how you feel about the idea (I didn’t think there was ever much traffic in the park), we now have a map of what the “Western Loop” really is. See attached map.
Big ***ing deal. 14th Avenue (not really in the park) and the loop to the south/west of the reservoir are all that’s closed.
The streets that might have made some difference to a day in the park remain open:
- the north-south road past SAAM which goes between the two main grassy areas – the open meadow and the lawn with the amphitheater. Closing this would have allowed car-free views of/from the Big Black Donut, and would have made the grassy bits quieter.
- the east-west road from 15th, past the play area and wading pool. Closing this would have made the play area safer.
Yes, I know there are probably ADA access issues that require some of those to stay open. It’s just that they seem to have kept open the roads that might have made a difference, and closed the little used ones. Oh, well.
Hrrm. I had figured that they would be closing the roads/parking lots near the doughnut and the museaum, at the very least. Closing the road near the wading pool would have been nice too.
The roads that they chose to close don’t really change anything. It’s kinda a big fat publicity waste of time and energy.
lame!