15 Replies to “Live: King Street Station Plaza Opening”

    1. Who are they talking to? A 13 minute video and nobody said anything. They should have said “We put down this crushed marble because we couldn’t afford stuff that wasn’t broken and even though nobody will use this station we’ve got these people telling us we can’t tear it down for more parking so have fun with your “plaza”. Instead it’s a lot of name dropping and BS. Do we really need an opening ceremony for gluing some gravel and randomly placing some empty planters onto the roof of a maintenance facility? Maybe it’s a slow day a the city offices. Have a party when King Street Station is completely renovated and beautiful like it used to be and we have 6 Cascades trains a day to Portland. THEN have a party.

      1. Wow, you’re cynical!

        It looks quite nice but it could be extended I think to cover that triangle over the tracks.

        It will be better when they put the lights up again.

        I actually thought McGinn seemed quite interested in the project!

  2. Out of curiosity, how was the live video done from the remote location? I didn’t see the microwave truck or anything like that onsite.

    1. @Charles

      The Seattle Channel can go live remotely by connecting their camera to a 3G aircard. The vast majority of their live coverage, especially when live-streaming to the web, uses this relatively new capability for the Channel.

      Aaron Pickus
      Assistant Communications Director
      Mayor Mike McGinn

    1. They’re going to make it walkable…. by moving the mission to Yakima or something? Fixing a sidewalk or two? I have an idea, how about we build a tunnel under the both stations that has ramps up to the Amtrak tracks, the Sounder tracks the Waterfront trolley tracks that now terminate on the surface just above (this is my dream, leave me alone) and the east end of the tunnel would open up right on the Link platform. You could have shops in the tunnel that sold flowers, pastries, fruit etc like in Paris/London. You could hop of the Cascades, walk just next door to catch the Sounder, or go to the waterfront on the trolley or on through to catch the Link to the airport, Uptown or University district.

      Or we could fix a few sidewalks on the surface and call it a “walkable transit area”.

      1. That would be really awesome for facilitating transfers, and hopefully they can do that someday. But it would be extremely expensive, so this will make transfers a lot easier in the meantime, and it’ll be great for the neighborhood as it grows. Not to mention that there will always be plenty of people trying to access King St. Station from the surface along Jackson St, with all the offices and residences around there, and the surface buses and coming First Hill Streetcar.

      2. Oh I think the plaza is a great idea but I think the one they chose to do is poorly executed. I hope they didn’t pay much for it. This will drop my transfers to about 6-7 minutes I think. The fact that I still have to go in the station, up a couple flights of stairs, across the plaza, across two streets and down two flights of stairs to get to the next set of tracks is silly.

      3. I’d love to see a small supermarket at or adjacent to the station, much as most larger European stations have, to make it easy to grab a quick something for the Sounder or Amtrak service–in addition to the shops you mention. A station by its very nature is a funnel point for large numbers of people. The surrounding area would benefit by it as well. (I know Uwajimaya is nearby, but not as convenient for a pop-in, pop-out sort of thing.)

  4. After spending billions, they may end up with something that’s half as nice as Kent Station “Plaza”.

    (Hipster alert…Chipotle at Kent Station..ver’ hapnin’)

    1. Bailo was talking Kent currency, not US dollars.

      Speaking of Kent Station, it seems pretty dead down there. Did they stop working on that garage by the Justice Center?

      1. The “under construction” parking garage is pretty much abandoned right now. A developer ran out of money a few years back, so they couldn’t pay the contractors. Work stopped. The city has been going back and forth about how they can get it taken care of. I don’t recall who owns it currently (and I’m too lazy right now to look it up).

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