The Seattle Times has details of a woman who survived a 40-foot fall onto I-5 Sunday afternoon as she was reportedly headed toward a space where homeless people are known to camp under the freeway overpasses at the base of Capitol Hill:
Woman survives fall from overpass onto I-5 in Seattle Sunday
A homeless woman sustained non-serious injuries Sunday when she fell from an overpass onto Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle. more…
On my walk home along Olive Way last week, I saw a woman climb through an opening in the fence at that the highway from the parking lot at Olive Way.
I watched here walk along the concrete above the highway, all the way past the building on that property lot. (I wondered why she didn’t go around the building the other way.) Eventually, she got to the “intersection” of Boren and the southbound express lane off ramp. There she climbed through another fence, walked up some steps, and then disappeared form my view.
I guess that’s where the encampment is?
It seemed a rather insane way to get to where she was headed.
This is a good example of why homeless camps should be cleared by the City…not only for the good of our green areas, but also for the safety of the people who camp there.
The policy under Mayor Nickels was to give 72 hours notice to those in a camp (with posted signs), offer help in finding better housing, and then clear out the camp, saving items which obviously had some value so they could be reclaimed. This seemed like a compassionate and reasonable approach. Is it no longer being done?
Calhoun,
“Move it along” isn’t a solution, it’s just poking at the problem like picking at a zit.
I rarely drive on I-5 however the last few times I have seen people walking along the interstate it is very distracting to see people walking on the freeway. The scary thing is yesterday I saw what appeared to be homeless man walking in the Olive Way tunnel. This could be a deffinte distraction and after reading the comments on this story from Seattle Times there was a 5 car accident in the other direction right after this occured there is no factual evidence this was the cause but if I saw a women fall 40FT onto the freeway I may hit another car too.