Light Rail expansion
Sound Transit has posted updated information for the new Capitol Hill and University District light rail stations. A few of the local bloggers have shown their disdain of the proposed “art” for the Capitol Hill station. You can see a video of the design here.
It appears that the UW station has no art installations to sneer at, at least according to this artist rendering.
Sound Transit’s website has links to photos, video, and proposed site locations. Check it out.
Quite frankly, pink and orange fighter jet parts being turned into anything flies in the face of what good transit public art should be. My favourite is a local structure: the embrace at St. Pancras International in London. Very appropriate.
Just to clarify - I like the art work. The post on Hillku wasn’t meant disdainfully. I was actually being critical of the people who disdain the work.
Hillku: I didn’t see any disdain in your post.
I (8blockwalk) haven’t really taken a position on it, but I guess I got included in the ‘blogged about it’ category. I know it’s gonna be fighter jets, and I walked away thinking about that. I know people at the meeting were definitely mad about it. I’m not super excited about it, but I don’t hate it. I liked the pictures of Big Rig at burning man, and I thought the ability to climb into the structure was pretty cool. I don’t see from the design meeting how this will really be as interesting a piece. Big Rig was theme art for Burning Man. Is the theme of Capitol Hill really as simple as anti-war? Really?
What I was mostly interested in is what sort of changes the hill is going to go through in the next 8 years. One of the best comments at the design meeting was a woman asking about adding additional crosswalks on the construction route. Sound Transit didn’t have an answer, but I hope they don’t forget it. It’s already not-fun crossing both streets on that route, and once they start pulling debris and tunnel dirt out, we’re going to have a non-stop parade of dump trucks on the hill, and you can bet they’re a bit more dangerous than the looking-for-parking crowd.
First off, I apologize to Mattw and Hillku for "putting words in your mouth" in terms of the tone of your posts. Looking back over the posts in question, it appears that I put my own bias into what I was reading and I apologize. Thank you for the great comments.
Next, you bring up some great points Mattw. This should definitely be an agenda at the neighborhood council meetings that fall into this district and most likely should be an early agenda item on the soon-to-be-newly formed Capitol Hill Community Council.