Freeway Cap Parks A Great Idea, but Not a New One

By Eric Richardson
Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008, at 11:07AM

Jason Brackins

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES —

Yesterday “freeway cap parks” as its winner in the urban planning “Idea of the Year” category, referencing proposals to cap the 101 in Hollywood and the 110 south of Downtown to provide green space. While these two L.A. proposals did pop up in 2007, the idea of freeway parks in neither new nor an L.A. invention.

Seattle's occupies 5.2 acres above the 5 freeway and was opened on July 4th, 1976. Funding for the park came from a 1968 Seattle Bond measure passed as part of the "Forward Thrust" program, tasked with creating parks as balance for density.

Similarly, L.A.'s had its own ideas for freeway park space. A 1985 proposal by the Air Rights Development Corporation would have constructed an office building and 250-room hotel on the tiny strip of land just west of the 110 between 4th and 6th streets, capping over the freeway with a pedestrian-park bridge that would link the complex to Downtown's financial district. The project was killed by the opposition of neighbors, including Unocal Corporation, whose Downtown headquarters (now L.A. Center Studios) was just next door.

A few years later Downtown saw another over-freeway idea. In 1988 the "Steel Cloud" would have risen over the 101 as it passed through the Civic Center. The monument would have included aquariums and movie screens. The project engendered quite mixed opinions, and was never built.

One can only hope that the proposals of today have a little better success.

Photo of Seattle's Freeway Park by .

Comments

John Crandell writes:

Yes! Cap the Harbor Freeway between 4th & 5th. Rumor is about that the property owner of the Union Bank of California Tower is investigating a removal of the parking structure in order to go deep with underground parking and add office space above to build out the allowable floor area ratio for the site. The plaza for this new structure could easily flow or continue into a landscaped freeway cap from the Figueroa sidewalk up and across to Beaudry Ave. Ramps for disabled access would need to be integrated with whatever hardscape solution such that no handrails would be necessary. However, there is the opportunity for informal ampitheater(s) and cascading water. The freeway park atop I-5 in Seattle was novel for it's time but over the years, the remote or closed off areas tended to attract the same sort of crowd which caused problems at Pershing Square. A person was murdered in one of these areas. Whatever design solution would need to be open and uncluttered. As to the 101 Gulch, that site was the subject of Tom Bradley's West Coast Gateway Competition held in the summer of 1988 (the summer when Deconstructionism was in it's prime). Just as in the Pershing Square Competition of two years before, the city's design savants (juries) chose winning entries guaranteed to become controversial, impossible to implement. If the winning entry had been constructed across the 101, it surely would have become the L.A. equivalent of the Golden Gate Bridge: a magnet for those intent on ending it all and plunging onto the freeway lanes below. Bradley was so embarrassed that he never again wanted to hear anything regards monuments. If the winning entry to the Pershing Square Competition had been constructed, the result would have become a disaster of FAR greater magnitude than what we have now.

# on Jan.01.2008 AT 06:12 PM

Roy writes:

Phoenix, AZ opened a deck park over the 10 freeway around 1990. Nice park, home to the Phoenix central library, and provides some much needed green space in central Phx.

# on Jan.02.2008 AT 02:43 AM

John Swartz writes:

Yes!! Whatever it is... build it!!

I've seen pictures of the one in Seattle.. very cool!

# on Jan.04.2008 AT 09:16 AM

Freeway Cap Parks A Great Idea, but Not a New One

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