This summer, for the first time, Seattle banned cars in the Pike Place Market :
Last year (2024), some politicians said no one will shop here anymore if it’s pedestrianized :
https://publicola.com/2024/04/02/dont-open-pike-place-to-pedestrians-council-member-urges/
Yep, that is indeed what it boils down to because it’s a major tourist attraction for people coming in to visit Seattle. So the city councilperson argued that it would reduce people visiting if they had to park far away.
Glad to see they were wrong.
I’ve been to Seattle twice and we went to the market both times. We always walked from our hotel bc there’s quite a few hotels in that area (almost like it’s a hot tourist area) but even when we wanted to go somewhere further away, we just either used public transit or those rentable scooter things. Also the first time we went to pike place market like 4 years ago or something cars kept trying to drive around the crowd and it made everything so much worse. I swear some people have forgotten that not using a car is an option, even when they only want to go somewhere a block away