The Struggle to Climb Seattle’s Hills

With the increase of traffic in the streets of Seattle, it becomes evident that pavements or planks are an absolute necessity, especially during the winter months. The improvements made during the past few months in the ways to cover several of our prominent streets have been very noticeable, and although they were not long ago mere mud, they are now paved and utilized by a traffic that is constantly on the increase. The ease with which the public avails itself of the benefits of a planked street is marked. It is not too much to say that the city could not draw up a better street improvement plan, with greater profit to itself and more satisfaction to the people than to make the available roads to the top of the hill reaching to the ascent to Eleventh Street in any sort of conveyance less laborious in the extreme, aggravating to all beasts of burden, and exasperating to those who are compelled to use them. How residences are springing up in all parts of the plateau bounded on the west by Fourth and the traffic over the bluff carries has now assumed proportions that certainly warrant the council to ascertain whether the streets which are most generally used can not be improved so as to make the transition less formidable than it is at present. It has been suggested that the population of the hillside, at the top and beyond, is now sufficiently large to warrant some consideration for their needs and the question of its feasibility to plank certain streets to the higher elevations so that carriages, vehicles and carts may have one route over which with some degree of comfort and speed the transit may be made from the business center to the higher parts of the city. One suggestion is that planking be laid from Second to Third on Cherry, along Third to Marion, along Marion to Fourth, along Fourth to Columbia, and up Madison to Eleventh. Possibly a better route than this could not be selected; at any rate, it is certain that all streets to the hill top are in a deplorable condition in the winter and that some one route must very soon, if not at once, be improved so that working from one part of the city to the other will not be attended with the present difficulties.