User:SounderBruce/Sandbox/Martin Luther King Jr. Way (Seattle)

Martin Luther King Jr. Way (also known as MLK Way) is a major north–south arterial street in Seattle, Washington, serving the Central District and Rainier Valley. It runs for 11 mi between several neighborhoods with large minority populations, with its two halves parallel to Rainier Avenue in the Rainier Valley and 23rd Avenue in the Central District.

The street was platted in 1913 and originally known as Empire Way, using the nickname of railroad tycoon James J. Hill, "The Empire Builder". It was completed in 1923 and later extended to cover the entire Rainier Valley. The street was renamed in 1983 to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2009, Link light rail service between Seattle and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport began. Four of the light rail line's stations are located on or adjacent to MLK Way: Rainier Beach, Othello, Columbia City, and Mount Baker. The street also has King County Metro service along its entire length, covered by routes 8 and 106.

Route
Martin Luther King Jr. Way South begins as a continuation of Southwest Sunset Boulevard (State Route 900) at Oakesdale Avenue Southwest in Renton. MLK Way travels northwest along the ridge of Skyway Hill, becoming parallel to Interstate 5 (I-5) and a BNSF railyard. The street intersects I-5 in Tukwila, where the eastbound lanes cross over the freeway twice to meet on- and off-ramps. MLK Way continues north, passing another I-5 interchange at Boeing Access Road, and enters the city of Seattle. An elevated light rail guideway, carrying Link light rail trains, crosses over the southbound lanes as the tracks descend into the street's median. MLK Way passes through a narrow valley home to light industrial businesses before arriving at South Henderson Street, the location of Rainier Beach and its light rail station. The street crosses under high-voltage electrical transmission lines, which share their right-of-way with the Chief Sealth Trail, and enters the primarily residential portions of the Rainier Valley.

Through the Rainier Valley, MLK Way runs northwesterly along a narrow strip of retail and light commercial spaces between large tracts of single-family and multi-family housing. Link light rail stops at two additional surface-level stations, Othello and Columbia City, adjacent to New Holly and Rainier Vista, large multi-family developments built and managed by the Seattle Housing Authority. At South Walden Street, the light rail guideway begins to elevate as it turns northwesterly to approach Mount Baker station; the street, meanwhile, continues north to an intersection with Rainier Avenue, a parallel north–south street that crosses over from southeast to northwest. The south side of the intersection has a pedestrian overpass that spans both streets.

North of Rainier Avenue, MLK Way runs due north with the exception of gradual bypasses around the former site of Sick's Stadium (now a Lowe's store) and Sam Smith Park over Interstate 90. Entering the Central District, the street cuts through residential neighborhoods to the east of the primarily commercial corridor of 23rd Avenue. MLK Way passes Powell Barnett Park in the Leschi neighborhood and reaches its highest elevation of 318 ft at an intersection with Yesler Way. The street then begins to descend into the Madison Valley and ends at an intersection with East Madison Street near the south end of the Washington Park Arboretum.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) classifies the entire length of Martin Luther King Jr. Way as an arterial street, with the southern half from Rainier Beach to Rainier Avenue as a principal arterial and the northern half from Rainier Avenue to Madison Street as both a minor and collector arterial. Annual average daily traffic data collected by SDOT in 2014 estimates that 31,700 vehicles travel on the busiest section of MLK Way, from Interstate 5 to South Henderson Street, and 9,900 vehicles use the least busiest section of the street, from Cherry Street to Madison Street.

Planning and construction
The Rainier Valley area was settled in the late 19th century during the early development of the Seattle region. In the 1880s, during one of the city's largest population booms, real estate developers platted land in the valley and sought to attract potential buyers. The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway, an interurban running from Downtown Seattle to Renton, was built in the 1890s along Rainier Avenue, forming the valley's main commercial and residential corridor.

In 1911, Virgil Bogue proposed his "Plan for Seattle", outlining a system of parkways, rapid transit lines and new highways for the city among other improvements. One of the proposed highways would have paralleled Rainier Avenue through the valley, creating a flatter route with a maximum grade of 3 percent to the west intended to alleviate traffic from Rainier. While the plan was not approved by voters, several of his proposed highways were considered by the Seattle City Council. In January 1913, the city council approved construction of a north–south highway through the western valley, from Dearborn Street in the north to Rainier Beach, with a width of 90 ft and using portions of the existing Renton Avenue. The street would be named "Empire Way" after James J. Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railway and nicknamed the "Empire Builder".

The condemnation of properties that would form the new street continued until October 1914, when city councilman Allen Dale proposed the city council re-assess the plan. Dale, who believed that demand for the new street and a streetcar line in the area was not high enough to justify the $1.5 million cost, used citizen outcry over the use of eminent domain to vacate properties and pushed for a repeal of the project's approval. Instead of cancelling the project, the city council voted to truncate the planned street to Winthrop Street in Columbia City at the north end, removing the segment to Dearborn Street as well as a branch route connecting to Rainier Beach. Construction of the new 6.2 mi Empire Way would cost $200,000 less in property condemnation.

Condemnation proceedings were completed on February 15, 1915, with rulings on the last set of 602 verdicts approved by a King County Superior Court judge. The condemnations were contested for several years, with property owners along the route demanding immediate construction of Empire Way using the city's general fund rather than a property-assessed tax. In July 1917, the city council approved an 18-month delay on grading and paving Empire Way in response to the project's uncertain status. The King County Superior Court ruled that Empire Way qualified as an arterial highway that would be eligible for construction using general funds. The decision was later upheld in April 1918 by the Washington Supreme Court after an appeal from the city government. The city council approved $120,000 in condemnation bonds in October 1918 and bids were opened to contractors the following month.

The project was expanded to include the construction of a trunk sewer under Empire Way and released for bids in 1919, receiving only one offer. The city government granted a $323,000 construction contract to a local company in August 1922 for the sewer main and a paved, 4 mi arterial highway from Rainier Avenue to Renton Avenue measuring 90 ft wide. Grading work for Empire Way required the use of explosives to remove large boulders, with one incident in July 1923 resulting in damage to several homes and a playground near South Hudson Street. The grading and paving of the highway was declared complete by the contractor in December 1923.

Extensions and expansions

 * December 1924: Council endorses bus service instead of streetcar extension on Empire Way
 * Mayor Brown vetoes bill
 * 1930: Northern extension (Madison to UW) put on hold after protests from Montlake/Interlaken community
 * 1930s: extended south from Renton/Kenyon to Sunset/116th
 * 1931: Construction on south extension from Henderson to city limits, connecting with Sunset Highway (state road); $121,375 cost
 * 1950s: Rezoned to support commercial development (present-day pockets like Othello and Mount Baker)
 * 1955: Empire Way extension from Dearborn to Cherry approved
 * Built by 1956, northward path known as Temple Place/28th Avenue


 * 1959–1972: RH Thomson Expressway proposal


 * 1980s: I-90 realignment (lidded)


 * State designations
 * 1913: Pacific Highway? (or Rainier?)
 * 1934: State road designation proposed for Empire Way for state highway aid funding
 * 1937: PSH 2 (Sunset Highway) and US 10 extended from Renton to Seattle via Empire
 * 1939: PSH 2 re-routed to new floating bridge, old route transferred to branch (and US 10 Alt)
 * 1964/1970: SR 900 to Rainier
 * 1991/1992: SR 900 truncated


 * Light rail
 * 1991: City Council refuses to endorse any rail project not in Rainier Valley
 * 1996: Light rail approved, tenative plan to use MLK Way (Rainier also an option)
 * Lawsuit over rail alignment, lack of tunnel
 * 1999: MLK Way alignment chosen for light rail
 * 2004: Link construction starts, widening MLK Way to 93 feet
 * Complete re-construction of street, beginning with underground utilities, then concrete roadbed, tracks
 * New features: complete sidewalks, plazas, public art, left turn pockets, more streetlights, street tress
 * Rolling street closures until 2007
 * Construction complicated by contaiminated land and unmarked/unmaped utilities
 * Relocated and closed businesses
 * 2008: Testing begins
 * Statistics: 18 intersections and 10 pedestrian signals; light rail has signal priority and travels at 35 mph
 * Collisions from left-turning, lack of crossing gates
 * 2009 to 2011: 8 total accidents involving Link (7 vehicle, 1 pedestrian)
 * 2005–2012: Redevelopment of Rainier Vista and New Holly
 * 2009: Link opens
 * 2010s: Development around light rail stations


 * Proposed improvements
 * 2015 – Accessible Mount Baker: eliminating through-access at Rainier (NB MLK to NB Rainier only; SB MLK to SB Rainier only); adding a two-way cycletrack on MLK Way
 * 2013 Bicycle Master Plan: protected cycle track from Union to I-5
 * Originally projected to be built from 2017 to 2019
 * Eliminated in 2016 update

Naming
Empire Way was originally named after James J. Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railway and nicknamed the "Empire Builder". In 1981, a petition was circulated to rename the street in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., with the support of the Seattle chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 4,000 signatures were collected and presented to the Seattle City Council, who forwarded the proposal to the Seattle Board of Public Works. The Board of Public Works recommended renaming a 3 mi stretch of Empire Way, from Rainier Avenue to Madison Street, to avoid upsetting business owners south of Rainier Avenue and keep costs down; African American community leaders opposed the proposal, requesting that the full street be renamed, to include the Holly Park and Rainier Vista housing projects. At the time, 70 percent of property owners on the corridor were African American.

On July 19, 1982, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to approve an ordinance renaming the entire street for Martin Luther King Jr. The ordinance was signed by Mayor Charles Royer at the end of the month, amid complaints from citizens and merchants over the renaming and its costs. The $53,000 cost of replacing street signs, and an additional $61,000 for amending city maps and records, was proposed to be funded through the sale of commemorative street signs, as the city had a substantial deficit in its upcoming budget. Earlier estimates of street sign replacement went up to $85,000, along with concerns that the 42 in signs would be too long for some street corners and be a hazard for turning trucks, requiring additional cost to move them back from the roadway.

The name change was controversial before and after approval by the City Council, with over 86 telephone calls of protest being recorded by the city in the wake of the decision. Many complaints were over the cost of signage, which came during a period of budgetary issues for the municipal government, while others complained about the lack of a public referendum on the public. Supporters of the name change accused the opposition of being racially-motivated, commenting on the volume of calls, of which some were racially motivated and included slurs and racist epithets.

In early August, 36 businessmen from the Empire Way Merchants Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Seattle to block the name change, arguing that the use of an emergency ordinance would prevent a public vote and businesses would need to replace signage and stationary because of the change. The suit led to the distribution of fliers urging Seattleites to boycott businesses and merchant groups that supported the lawsuit. A King County Superior Court judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order and upheld the city's decision to change the street's name. The merchant group filed an appeal in the state Court of Appeals, which later went before the state Supreme Court, who upheld the city's decision on December 1, 1983. The merchant group decided to not file an additional appeal, but continued their criticism of the name change's cost of $114,000.

The following day, the first official signs were erected on Martin Luther King Jr. Way at Cherry Street, sporting the wrong block number and directional suffix. The signs were preceded by unofficial, glued stickers placed on street signs by supporters in protest of the delayed sign change in November, which were washed off in the rain. The last of the 500 street signs was replaced on January 15, 1984, during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony presided by Mayor Royer.

Transit service
Martin Luther King Jr. Way is one of the city's busiest transit corridors, carrying Link light rail service through the Rainier Valley between Mount Baker and Rainier Beach stations on the Central Link line; it runs at street level on the southern half of MLK Way, between Rainier Avenue and Tukwila. Light rail service runs 19–20 hours per day on the southern portion of MLK Way, serving four stations at frequencies ranging from 6 minutes during rush hours to 10 minutes midday and on weekends, and 15 minutes at other times. The northern half of MLK Way, from Rainier Avenue to Madison Street, is designated as a "Minor Transit Street" by the Seattle Department of Transportation.

The street is also served by frequent, all-day bus service from King County Metro, with two routes covering the entire length of the street from Rainier Beach to Madison Valley. Route 8, which begins at the Seattle Center and travels east via Denny Way, uses MLK Way from Madison to Mount Baker station, serving the Central District. Route 106 begins in the Chinatown-International District area and runs limited-stop along Jackson Street and Rainier Avenue to Mount Baker, where it turns into a local, frequent-service route on MLK Way to Rainier Beach; the route continues southeast to Skyway and Renton.

From 2009 to 2016, route 8 ran the entire length of MLK Way between Madison and Rainier Beach, but was split into two routes at Mount Baker to improve reliability, creating route 38; route 38 was eliminated in September 2016 and replaced by a revised route 106. Prior to the opening of Link light rail in 2009, routes 48 and 42 provided all-day frequent service on the southern half of MLK Way and its predecessor, Empire Way.

A small segment of MLK Way in the Mount Baker neighborhood also has electric trolleybus service provided by route 4.