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City to consider opening up Madison Park shoreline

On the heels of a SeattleScape post by Patrick Doherty, the city of Seattle will consider removing a fence that blocks regular folks’ access to a block-long swatch of Lake Washington shoreline, one block north of the Madison Beach park. Doherty wondered “What’s up with that?” in the SeattleScape post. Now according to a SeattlePI.com post, the city’s Parks Board will take up the issue in December, much to the chagrin of some neighbors in Madison Park.

This block-long stretch on Lake Washington has been behind a fence for decades.

This entry was posted by Lynn on Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 10:09 am and is filed under Government, Neighborhoods, Parks and open space, Planning, Politics, Preservation, Seattle lifestyle, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Jordan

    I am a resident of MP and live very close to the “fenced park” on 43rd Ave. I strongly oppose removing the fence and opening up the shoreline to the public.

    One of the main reasons my wife and I bought a home in MP was because of the quiet and tranquil atmosphere that we experienced and heard about from other residents. If we opened up the shoreline, it would bring in unwanted noise, traffic, and many other issues that relate to the increased amount of people visiting our neighborhood.

    Madison Park Resident

    If folks want to experience MP and its offerings, they should go to the existing parks (not to mention there are other smaller swimming areas open to the public further south) south of the one being discussed.

    In addition, parking is very limited in the area and opening up a beach would only further limit the availability of parking due to more people visiting. The City of Seattle is also taking away parking spots and for them to open up the park would be stronly contested.

    Keep the fence and the tranquility of MP.

  • Patrick

    I fully understand Jordan’s perspective, but I have to disagree with the position offered. Publicly owned shoreline is a very valuable and very finite commodity. Seattleites deserve public access – be that passive or active – to all of the publicly owned shorelines even if the immediate neighbors would prefer that they not have that access. This would be a perfect spot for those folks who would prefer to avoid the crowds at Madison Beach to picnic quitely by the sparkling waters, let their kids skip stones or try their hand at fishing, put in a kayak or canoe. It will never be the rowdy, crowded beach that Madison Beach is, but that would be a welcome and, yes, “tranquil” alternative to Madison Beach. Parking is already at 100% capacity, so users would likely come from the neighborhood, use public transportation, bike, etc. There is really NO excuse to fence off public shorelines anywhere in Seattle unless there is an imminent public health or safety hazard. It’s a historic mistake that needs correcting.

  • Jack

    If you took a vote in the neighborhood I suspect it’d be overwhelmingly No to developing that shoreline. So why develop a beach the neighborhood doesn’t want?

    And with parking already at “100%” of capacity does it make sense to develop a new beach to attract more cars?

    And, why wouldn’t it be a rowdy crowded beach? There’s no way to predict what kind of ‘characters’ it might attract.

    I would be more sympathetic if this was the only beach in the area, but Madison Park Beach is a very good size and is just a few blocks away.