The annual Seafair Festival Weekend is next week on August 1-3 at Genesee Park. Festivities include an air show, hydroplane races, and a classic car show. Event organizers are encouraging attendees to use public transportation.
For most people, the Link 1 Line will be the best option. The closest station is Columbia City. Route 106 also stops next to Columbia City Station. From there, the festivities are a 20 minute walk away. Alternatively, Seafair is providing a free shuttle to and from the station between 9am and 6pm. Route 50 also runs between Columbia City station and the Genesee Park.
Route 7 stops at Rainier Ave & S Genesee St, a 10 minute walk from the park. The new northbound bus only lanes should make it a reliable option when leaving the event.
Route 50 stops right next to Genesee Park. Due to the route’s 30 minute frequency and the expected traffic in the area, it is probably only the best option for attendees coming from West Seattle or Seward Park.
Bicycle parking is available near the Main Entrance in Genesee Park. The Rainier Valley Greenway crosses Genesee St on 37th Ave. Genesee St has painted bike lanes in both directions.
For those who plan to drive, limited parking is available for $55 per day. An ADA parking lot is located at S Genesee St & 43rd Ave S. Be sure to allow extra time for your trip as all streets in the area will be congested.
This is an open thread.
Do all the I-90 bridges have to open for sea traffic during Seafair?
Will all the I-90 bridges, including the 2 Line, be closed to traffic during the Blue Angels practices and performances, and the Albert Lee Cup practice and competitions?
@Brent White?
Huh? None of the floating bridges on Lake Washington have movable spans anymore. None. Those are long gone.
Additionally, WSDOT hasn’t been closing the I-90 bridge for the Seafair air show anymore. Traffic slows down because of gawkers, but Light Rail will be totally unaffected due to its use of professional drivers on dedicated ROW free of congestion.
Previously the Blue Angels “aerial performance box” went over I-90, meaning the FAA required I-90 to be closed during performances and practices when the Blue Angels flew. The “aerial performance box” has since moved south and the I-90 floating bridge is no longer in the box, hence I-90 can stay open these days. Sure that WSP does monitor the bridge to make so motorists don’t park on the bridge.
Was the gathering always in Genesee Park? I’d always assumed it was along the shore. Once I biked from the U-District to Rainier Beach during it, and at one point Lake Washington Blvd was closed an I had to go around it several blocks.
I just want to see the Blue Angels. Go Navy!
It will probably never happen, but I would like see a Seafair someday without the blue angels. They’re extremely loud, to the point where, when you’re in or near the viewing area, you need hearing protection. They cost the taxpayers a huge amount of money to operate. And the carbon footprint of the airshow, plus practices, is probably insane.
Of course, I recognize that this opinion probably puts me in with a small lefty minority, like the people who write Urbanist articles, but I’ll say it anyway.
I don’t care about the noise. I just care about the waste of tax money. The government is 34 trillion in debt and still running this nonsense team
It’s a recruiting tactic.
Alternative to Loud Boats
Not this year though.
Oh please. The carbon footprint of those planes barely accumulate to anything. Commercial aircraft is much much greater of an issue
It’s a tradition that many of us enjoy and we shouldn’t sacrifice it because of a political gimmick. Don’t like the noise? Headphones, or don’t go to the fair…
The flying swooshes are loud and sharp all over part of Seattle, louder than regular planes or helicopters. Even inside my Capitol Hill apartment they’re still loud and sharp. So is everyone not participating in the fair supposed to put in earplugs too?
In most years I hear them practicing some days before the event. This year I didn’t hear practicing, although there was a time a month ago when I heard loud noises and thought it might be the Blue Angles, then thought it can’t be because Seafair isn’t until August, which was two months away. But Seafair seems to be early this year.
Metro’s service change is also early this year. It appears to be August 30, based on data somebody said was put into the database Metro and the transit apps use. Normally it’s in mid to late September, and a couple recent years were even in October. But for some reason both Seafair and Metro are in August this year. I wonder if other things are early too. Labor Day is September 1st, so that may be pushing everything else up.
The noise is annoying but not that big a deal. It makes me increasingly sympathetic to Alternative to Loud Boats though. I never attended that and didn’t really know what it was and that it had stopped, but in the last few years I’ve been thinking about it more strongly.
I lived in Beacon Hill for a year, and my partner worked the night shift so she slept in the daytime. Except Seafair week, she was frequently woken up by the jets overhead, and averaged maybe 3 hrs of sleep each day, poor thing.
The noise of Blue Angels has actually been a significant factor in why I haven’t lived in South Seattle in the years since.
It doesn’t just fly over during the Seafair weekend, it also rehearses before Seafair, so you cannot really escape from that.
I am not what level of noise you had from your place, but it certainly is extremely disturbing to hear that from Mercer Island. It is not the white noise you had from commercial jets, it is more like sonic boom, the explosion-like sound that could give someone a heart attack. You cannot really block that with headphone.
I don’t think it is wrong to have Blue Angels. Clearly a lot of people enjoy it and it’s a good summer event, but I think noise and possible trauma induced by noise are both valid concerns.
As I said, I recognize that I am in the minority on this, and I don’t fault the city for catering to the majority. But, I still don’t like the noise.
Often, during the performance, I end up taking my dog hiking in the mountains, far enough away that I don’t hear anything.
Loud? That’s the sound of freedom baby.
Do Metro route 50 and the SeaFair Shuttle share any stops, so riders can just catch whichever comes first?
I used to ride the 550 between Seattle & Bellevue a couple times a week and definitely don’t miss those i90 bridge closures that scuttled the reliability of the 550 commute.
I think the Blue Angels are fun but imagine what we could do public transit-wise with all that taxpayer cash that’s going up in flames.
Also my husband and I remember the era before the Blue Angels took over Seafair and there was a bigger emphasis on maritime heritage and Fleet Week Navy boats & people. There’s so many airshows and airfairs in this area… could Blue Angels do those instead? Just my 2 cents.
Seafair shuttles were an absolute unmitigated disaster on Friday Aug 1st.
8 shuttles for an estimated 2200 people, mismanaged lines, serial loading of buses, 1 hr long wait with no clarity on when the buses would return. SPD had adequate coverage in the area to manage traffic and should have opened a route for mass transit movement. Overall they ended up ruining what was a fabulous air show by the Blue Angels.
Even the Seafair site pointed everyone at the link light rail + shuttle combination as the best way to make it there and back. This proved to be a bust! There are no indications of what time the first and last shuttles of the day would be. All in all a poor poor show from whomever planned this.
Have staff on ready to line up and load 8 buses quickly instead of 7 idling for 40 minutes, SPD opens a path to two link light rail stations for 40 minutes at the end of the show, run one extra train and you avoid the mess that was created yesterday.
I saw out of town visitors missing their scheduled events at other local sights due to the mismanagement. Bad look for the city.
In recent years, there has been a reserved pathway for the shuttles. Maybe it wasn’t set up on Free Friday, or maybe it wasn’t set up at all this year.