Yesterday, I covered the need for lid parks in Downtown Seattle and what they should be used for. In this article, I look at (very rough) cost estimates for lids based on existing and proposed projects across the United States. From those projects, I select handful to study in-depth and make recommendations on design and operations of future lid parks.
Lid Inventory and Cost Estimating
In analyzing a lidding of I-5, my next step was to build a list of completed and proposed lid projects in the United States. To my knowledge, I am the only researcher to have done this and this is the first publicly available database. I sought data on completion year (to adjust costs for inflation), original costs, and size. Most of the data was acquired through online sources or by contacting local and state officials. Significant gaps remain where, for various reasons, these officials did not have the information.
The map below identifies completed lid projects in red and proposed in green. (Please contact me if you have suggested additions or corrections.)
