A Seattle suburb remakes its center
Bothell, Washington, adapts to current employment and living trends by redoing highways and making a walkable, mixed-use downtown.
Though the long economic slump has forced many communities to curb their aspirations, Bothell, Washington, has kept moving forward on a far-reaching reconfiguration of its downtown.
Like many suburbs, Bothell remains prosperous, but the 33,000-population community realizes that its future will depend at least partly on creating more walkable and sociable settings — the environments that a growing number of people, both young and older, are gravitating toward.
Bothell is pursuing a series of interconnected projects: A state highway, Rt. 522, is being relocated to improve traffic circulation and expand the walkable portion of downtown. A multi-way boulevard has been planned on part of what has been the five-lane Bothell- Everett Highway (State Rt. 527). And 15 buildings — mostly auto-oriented structures such as gas stations — have been demolished, making way for pedestrian-oriented development.
These projects, in a suburb about 20 miles northeast of Seattle, are intended to transform Bothell from an overwhelmingly auto-oriented community to a place that, although still largely dependent on cars, will have a diversified, walkable center.
How and why did Bothell (median household income $66,700) go about this?
• Local leaders had been wrestling for years with traffic that clogged Rt.
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