Sal on I-5 Southbound: Everett to Federal Way
By WithBy
Categories: Society & Culture, Places & Travel
The history, landmarks, and stories along I-5 southbound from Everett to Federal Way, timed to the drive exit by exit. Spoken by Sal and Peggy.
38 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Exit 143 — Rhododendrons, Mostly
Sal: Between exits one hundred forty-two and one hundred forty-three. Sal: This is where State Route 18 meets the freeway, the road to Auburn and Maple Valley. It began as a cloverleaf for what was then called the Auburn cutoff, built with the first stretch of freeway through Federal Way, in 1962…
- Exit 147 — Named After Traffic
Sal: Between exits one hundred forty-three and one hundred forty-seven. Sal: Federal Way got its name from a road. When five school districts merged here in 1929, the area took the name from U.S. 99, the federally designated highway that ran through it between Seattle and Tacoma. The new high…
- Exit 149 — Army Campgrounds, Lakefront
Sal: Between exits one hundred forty-seven and one hundred forty-nine. Sal: Long before the freeway, a military road went through here. In the 1850s the federal government built Military Road to link Fort Steilacoom with Fort Bellingham, and it was finished in 1860. The lakes along it served as…
- Exit 151 — Sneaky Drivers, 1962
Sal: Between exits one hundred forty-nine and one hundred fifty-one. Sal: This is State Route 516, the Kent-Des Moines Road, beside Highline College. On October 10, 1962, Interstate 5 from Tacoma was extended 13.5 miles to Midway, near Des Moines, and for a few years the freeway ended near here…
- Exit 152 — Canoes, Then Drones
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-one and one hundred fifty-two. Sal: Between the freeway and International Boulevard is Angle Lake, in SeaTac. It is L-shaped, 102 acres, and it was most likely named for its outline, which forms a right angle. It was one of the army campgrounds on the old…
- Exit 153 — Garbage, Uninterrupted
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-two and one hundred fifty-three. Sal: Along here the freeway runs between SeaTac and Tukwila, past the airport. SeaTac is named for the airport, and it became a city on the same day as Federal Way, in February 1990. The ballot spelled the name Sea-Tac, with a…
- Exit 154 — A Pond, Accidentally
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-three and one hundred fifty-four. Sal: In the middle of Southcenter, among the big stores and the parking lots, is a 19-acre pond. Nobody dug it. This was farmland in a river valley, and after the 1950s, as building took over, water collected in the low ground…
- Exit 156 — One Road, Two Numbers
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-four and one hundred fifty-six. Sal: At this interchange two roads meet the freeway and turn out to be one road. State Route 518 comes in from the airport, just 3.42 miles long. In 2011 it carried up to about 100,000 vehicles a day on its busiest stretch. It…
- Exit 157 — Foster, Mostly Gone
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-six and one hundred fifty-seven. Sal: Here State Route 599 meets Interstate 5. It is a short freeway that connects to Highway 99. Interstate 5 crosses the Duwamish River and a main railroad line. Sal: This ground used to be Foster, a small community named for…
- Exit 158 — Over It Twice
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-seven and one hundred fifty-eight. Sal: This exit is Martin Luther King Way, State Route 900. It meets the freeway in a basketweave interchange, and one direction of it crosses over the freeway twice. Peggy: Over it twice. Some roads can't make up their minds…
- Exit 161 — Boeing Wonderland
Sal: Between exits one hundred fifty-eight and one hundred sixty-one. Sal: This is Boeing Field. Its official name is King County International Airport. In 1928 county voters approved a 950,000-dollar plan to build the region's first municipal airport, and it was named for its neighbor, the Boeing…
- Exit 162 — Two Days Late
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-one and one hundred sixty-two. Sal: This is Georgetown, which may be the oldest neighborhood in Seattle. Luther Collins, Henry Van Asselt and the Maple family arrived on September 27, 1851, to farm the rich land of the Duwamish delta. The Denny party had landed…
- Exit 163 — The Thirsty City
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-two and one hundred sixty-three. Sal: With good hop country in the valleys and many German immigrants, Georgetown became the sixth-largest beer producing district in the world. A Georgetown brewing company bought the Seattle Brewery and its Rainier brand in…
- Exit 164 — Boeing Hill
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-three and one hundred sixty-four. Sal: The ridge alongside is Beacon Hill. The Duwamish call it Greenish-Yellow Spine, probably for the deciduous trees that once grew thick on it. Early settlers called it Holgate and Hanford Hill, after two of them. Then M…
- Exit 165 — A Wrong Turn
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-four and one hundred sixty-five. Sal: This is where Interstate 90 meets I-5. It is the longest Interstate in the country, 3,099.7 miles to Boston. Sal: Here I-5 rides a viaduct over the International District. Building it divided Seattle's Chinatown, which led…
- Exit 166 — Thirteen Lanes, One Lid
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-five and one hundred sixty-six. Sal: Through downtown the freeway is thirteen lanes, among the widest in the United States, filling the whole block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. On June 1, 1961, a hundred citizens marched against the trench and asked for a…
- Exit 167 — Lanes That Turn Around
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-six and one hundred sixty-seven. Sal: The express lanes in the middle reverse direction depending on the time of day. The first section opened on June 2, 1965, with 13 access ramps between Olive Way and Northgate Mall. Peggy: A road that changes its mind twice…
- Exit 168 — Weave Here
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-seven and one hundred sixty-eight. Sal: This exit is Mercer Street, which serves South Lake Union. Beyond it, in Lower Queen Anne, is the Seattle Center, built for the 1962 World's Fair, with the 605-foot Space Needle. Sal: This stretch is known for its weave…
- Exit 169 — Bridges Over Water
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-eight and one hundred sixty-nine. Sal: At Roanoke Park, State Route 520 meets the interstate and heads for Bellevue and Redmond across Lake Washington on the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Near its start it crosses Portage Bay. The 1960s Portage Bay Bridge…
- Exit 170 — Cherry Trees, Rerouted
Sal: Between exits one hundred sixty-nine and one hundred seventy. Sal: This is the University District. In 1911 Virgil Bogue proposed a subway from downtown to here. The U District light rail station opened on October 2, 2021. Peggy: A hundred and ten years. Worth the wait. Sal: The university's…
- Exit 171 — Boulevard on a Creek
Sal: Between exits one hundred seventy and one hundred seventy-one. Sal: Ravenna Boulevard has a grassy median, built over a creek bed. Ravenna Creek once carried Green Lake's water to Lake Washington. In 1911 the lake was lowered seven feet to make parkland, and the creek dried up between the…
- Exit 172 — Lake Green
Sal: Between exits one hundred seventy-one and one hundred seventy-two. Sal: Green Lake is close by. A surveyor, David Phillips, named it in 1855. His first notes called it Lake Green, because even in its natural state it's prone to algae blooms. No stream runs in or out of it now. Sal: In 1950 an…
- Exit 173 — The Boulevard Blowout
Sal: Between exits one hundred seventy-two and one hundred seventy-three. Sal: Just south of here, the freeway's North Seattle section opened on August 28, 1963, with access to Bothell Way. That road is State Route 522 now, and inside the city it's Lake City Way, running northeast through Maple…
- Exit 174 — Bringing Home the Bacon
Sal: Between exits one hundred seventy-three and one hundred seventy-four. Sal: Northgate Mall opened in 1950, outside the Seattle city limits at the time. In 2018 its owner announced it would redevelop the fifty-five-acre mall with hotels, housing, offices and a hockey rink. The Kraken Community…
- Exit 175 — Five Years Early
Sal: Between exits one hundred seventy-four and one hundred seventy-five. Sal: Pinehurst light rail station stands beside the freeway at Northeast 130th Street. It was deferred, then funded by a 2016 ballot measure and scheduled to open in 2031. A plan to speed it up was approved in 2020, and it…
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