(Image: U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal)

(Image: Lid I-5)

Seattle’s hopes for someday lidding I-5 through downtown capping noise and pollution while re-connecting neighborhoods and creating millions in dollars of new development opportunities are getting a federal boost.

U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal representing the WA-07 district including Capitol Hill and much of the city’s central and northern neighborhoods says she has helped secure $2 million in federal funding “for the City of Seattle to continue their research and planning of a project to construct a lid over Interstate 5 (I-5) in downtown Seattle.”

“Highways that run through major urban areas can reduce green spaces, stifle economic growth, and cut-off entire communities from neighbors and business,” Jayapal said in the announcement. “This funding will allow the City of Seattle to continue planning and conducting community outreach on the I-5 lid project, which would transform our city’s downtown area and increase connectivity between different neighborhoods, businesses, and our local economy.”

Jayapal say lidding would also lead to more affordable housing, new jobs, and environmental improvements “to an area that has been negatively impacted by I-5 for decades.”

Efforts to lid the freeway and reconnect areas like Capitol Hill to downtown have grown over the past decade with the Seattle City Council stoking the effort last year with a resolution supporting what would be massively expensive — and possibly massively lucrative — project.

CHS reported here in 2019 on a $1.5 million study that explored the technical feasibility of building lids with possible green spaces and public parks, schools, and affordable housing developments. Federal money beyond the Jayapal-backed planning boost may be available to help also pay for the construction. The projects could also present the city with vital revenue opportunities as it looks to manage an increasingly challenging budgetary environment.

The new $2 million federal boost would “go toward helping the City of Seattle plan and conduct technical studies and community outreach for the proposed I-5 lid project, which aims to support the growing urban population,” Jayapal’s office says.

“This will help city leadership get necessary feedback and input from residents on how the project can best serve the city and ensure that equitable and healthy community-driven improvements are made,” the announcement reads.

Other Seattle freeway lid plans are already in the works but the state is having a difficult time paying for them. While construction of the Montlake Lid over 520 is nearing completion, WSDOT has been scrambling over the $1.4 billion bid to build the 520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid project north of Capitol Hill that came in 70% higher than expected.

A citizen-led effort to put a lid over I-5 and develop ideas for what to do with the new real estate has taken shape over past years led by the Lid I-5 group.

Any plans to eventually build the lid will have to pass through multiple layers of local, county, state, and federal bureaucracy and could also come with plenty of strings attached including possible expansion of the freeway around the city.

And the lid or lids might not be focused on the downtown portion of the interstate.

Jayapal’s office says the cash to pay for the new “research and planning” comes from the Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Community Planning Grant program, “which focuses on retrofitting or mitigating highways in underserved communities to improve community connectivity and economic development.”

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