Friends of Upper Kinnear Park/FUKPs: Elevating Urban Connection

Above: A possible scenario for a Kinnear connection using an augmented Bubbleator-style vertical transport system.  Illustration courtesy Steve Cox

Friends of Upper Kinnear Park/FUKPs

Residents along the western slope of Seattle's densely-populated Queen Anne Hill overlook Puget Sound and the Olympics, the Interbay commercial district, and the Myrtle Edwards Park waterfront -- and yet lack a pedestrian connection to these urban attractions. Since its origination as part of the Olmsted Plan (1903) for Seattle's park system, Kinnear Park attracts visitors and passers-through en route to destinations including Seattle Center, Queen Anne Hilltop, Uptown, Belltown, and Downtown.

Beginning in 2009, an organization known as Friends of Lower Kinnear Park/FOLKPark undertook projects to increase the security and accessibility of portions of the Park at the areas adjoining West Roy and West Mercer Place.  In 2014, neighbors and others celebrated completion of recent improvements.

Neighbors of Kinnear Park have also identified and hope to pursue the potential of pathway improvements connecting the upper and lower portions of the Park, and extending access to additional routes -- perhaps most critically to the Seattle waterfront and Myrtle Edwards Park via the Amgen Helix Bridge, since at present residents of West Queen Anne have virtually no hillside routes down to and across Elliott Avenue to reach the nearby waterfront.  Some see a logical point of linkage adjacent to the existing Park entrance at or near its low western edge near the West Olympic Way/West Prospect street-end, as shown in the illustration above.

As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair, Friends of Upper Kinnear Park/FUKPs considered possibilities to demystify, improve, and add options to Park thoroughfare, in keeping with the original concept that linked the Fair site to the Seattle waterfront. The program might also utilize a vertical transport system in the spirit of the Bubbleator that originally conveyed Worlds Fair visitors through the levels of the Fair experience, introducing some 10 million visitors to features of the modern age which the Fair heralded. Such an elevator would allow pedestrians of all abilities to enjoy both the upper and lower tiers of Kinnear Park, and also to use routes through the Park along the way to popular nearby destinations for commerce and recreation.

History: Kinnear Park, The Worlds Fair waterfront connection, and the Bubbleator at Seattle Center

Note: In June 2014, The Seattle Times Pacific magazine Now & Then featured a piece on the history/present of Kinnear Park.