Our Experience
While mapping the neighbourhood, my group and I observed that Belltown was one of the major neighbourhoods making up the main part of Seattle and many tourist attractions were either located in, or near the area. The trails at the waterfront included both pedestrian trials and bike trials.
As we moved deeper into the neighbourhood, we found many restaurants and cafes in which the residents could use, along with many ports that were available. When we reached the edge of Belltown, we found the Belltown P-Patch, a community park in which people can enjoy nature.
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Since my individual topic was on transportation, I also noticed the abundance of shared transportation choices that were available to the public. Feel free to check the image gallery above!
There are parking lots near the waters and shared spaces such as community gardens available to those with automobiles (they were all at similar price ranges – parking lots near parks were not too much more expensive than shared parking lots near commercial buildings). Shared scooters and bikes from different companies were seen almost every two blocks, and bus stops were set at approximately equivalent intervals. In addition, there were plenty of signs with directions to link stations and monorail stations that can be found nearby. Inside parks near the ocean, there were also bike lanes dedicated to bikers to bike and enjoy the view without worrying about running by pedestrians.
Observations
Asset or Barrier?
Our group took the link from the UDistrict station to Westlake station (located at the heart of Belltown) which made it easy and fast to make it to our destination. Even though we spent a lot of time walking around the neighborhood, we could see buses, taxis, and scooters/bikes that we could have used to get around town. Also, since Belltown is near the water, there were many ports in which people could use to get on ferries/cruises (we spotted many ferries with British and Canadian flags docked in the port). When my group reached the end of Belltown, we took the Monorail that took us back to the Westlake station and took the link from there back to UDistrict. The Monorail was an alternative to walking back and made it much easier and faster to get back to the station. Overall, I think that Belltown offers many options for exploring the neighborhood with the transportation choices avaliable.
There are many options for transportation in Belltown making it an asset.
