Does the future of Seattle’s bustling Pike Place Market involve cars?

FIRST, AN ADMISSION. As a teen in the early 1970s, I fell hard for the rough-and-tumble Pike Place Market. I knew it had just been rescued from the developer’s wrecking ball. But it was the unvarnished marketplace itself — a seeming chaos of intermingling vendors and customers — that repeatedly drew me to this multichambered heart of Seattle.

A “circus crowd” was how the wowed Seattle Times described the Market’s exuberant opening on Saturday, Aug. 17, 1907. With spirits undampened by rain, thousands of eager consumers, weary of overcharging for fresh produce by a syndicate of unscrupulous middlemen, flocked to Pike Place to buy directly from farmers.

By midmorning, farmers’ wagons were stripped bare. Noted the Times, the public market’s “great success proved that … Seattle was not only willing but anxious to support such a venture.”

Surviving Prohibition, the Depression, two world wars and a viaduct bypass, the aging Market in the mid-1960s faced certain demolition. A federally funded urban-renewal plan envisioned high-rise office buildings and parking lots to replace what Seattle architect Fred Bassetti famously called “an honest place in a phony time.” Fellow architect Victor Steinbrueck and other passionate preservationists arose to protest the scheme.

In 1971, their years of work paid off when Seattle voters agreed, by a landslide, to pass an initiative creating a Market “preservation zone.”

Today, the “honest place” faces a new question. Post-pandemic crowds, bolstered by cruise ships, often transform busy Pike Place — the street that bisects the Market — into a frenzied three-ring circus. To ameliorate such pressure and potential dangers, the city is evaluating whether to close the Market to vehicle traffic and create a pedestrian-only “event street.”

Such a step would disrupt the Market’s “controlled spontaneity,” says John Turnbull, recently retired from the Pike Place Preservation and Development Authority, which has operated the Market for the past 50 years. He cites a unique character 117 years in the making.

“We’re unlike any other neighborhood in the city,” Turnbull says, “with a blurring of public and private space.” He says the traffic question goes beyond maintaining accessible loading zones. “We need fire lanes and emergency and handicap access for residents. Closing to traffic is not a workable scenario.”

The Market Foundation’s Nick Setten knows much is on the line, and he welcomes conversation on the topic. “The Market is a living place with a unique historical context,” he says. “Whenever a decision of gravity is made here, the ripples expand exponentially.”

Preserving this “honest place” with rough edges and heart intact will be a hard-won road. And worth the journey.

Do you think cars should be allowed in Pike Place Market?

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