WOMEN’S MARCH ON SEATTLE: West Seattleites head out

busstopgirls
(WSB photos by Tracy Record and Patrick Sand unless otherwise credited)

10:42 AM: After receiving a photo from the bus-chartering moms in Gatewood (shown atop our daily-preview list), we decided to head to The Junction to check out people catching buses to head to the march starting point in the Central District. And we found lots of them, of all ages!

buscrowdlong

buscrowdchloe

marchersiphotographed

The buses were jammed – even with Metro adding more, in the 9 am hour, they were leaving full, with some having to wait for the next one. This photo was texted from aboard a Route 21 bus caught along Avalon:

IMG_4398
(WSB reader photo)

As we headed back south to WSB headquarters on the Gatewood/Upper Fauntleroy line, we saw an obviously march-bound group waiting at Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation, so we pulled over for this photo:

wsuu

They told us they were awaiting rideshare vehicles – and that the group was twice this size but the others had already left.

IF YOU’RE MARCHING: Please send a photo – we will have a separate report later with photos from the march. editor@westseattleblog.com or text to 206-293-6302 (our 24/7 round-the-clock number) – thank you!

IF YOU’RE NOT MARCHING: As added to our daily preview list, a local family is organizing a small solidarity march around The Junction – meet at Uptown Espresso (California/Edmunds/Erskine) at 12:30 pm.

ABOUT THE HATS: If you don’t know the background of the pink hats many are wearing … go here.

11:30 AM: As of a minutes ago, the march is officially on the move, having left Judkins Park (and all the overflow spots where people are waiting along the route to Seattle Center). If you are headed downtown for some other reason – keep in mind that traffic/access will be affected for hours. TV helicopters are over the crowd; this is the most reliable feed we’ve found so far.

12:28 PM: After more than an hour, SPD says the march has now spread almost entirely across the full official route of more than 3 miles – as the front of the march approaches the end of the route at Seattle Center, some have yet to leave Judkins Park at the start of the route.

2:45 PM: The march is in its fourth hour and some are still on the route to Seattle Center – just passing Spring Street, according to the latest police-radio update, plus SPD via Twitter:

All the estimates we’ve seen so far have participation at more than 100,000 people. Again, we’ll have a separate report later with the photos we’ve received (thank you!) and summary details.

3:04 PM: Some buses are still on reroutes – be aware of this if you’re trying to get home. For the C Line, we checked with Metro: “The C Line has been rerouted further west on Mercer to Queen Anne Ave. It is traveling south on QA to turn left on Denny Way, then right on 1st, left on Broad and right onto 3rd Ave.” We don’t know how much longer this will last, though.

3:29 PM: Metro also now has a free shuttle running “on 5th Ave between Mercer and Broad Streets” to go south back into downtown from Seattle Center to catch buses back this way.

32 Replies to "WOMEN'S MARCH ON SEATTLE: West Seattleites head out"

  • Neighbors January 21, 2017 (10:56 am)

    At the Alaska junction waiting for the C. Each bus that comes by is packed to the gills! Many cannot get on. 

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (11:02 am)

      Marchers haven’t left yet but the park’s boundaries have already been spilled over. Aerial view via TV chopper: http://www.kiro7.com/live-stream

  • Neighbors January 21, 2017 (11:16 am)

    Finally got on! Excitement is palpable.  Lots of signs and people cheering. Every stop after junction is crowded but none can get on. 

  • Alki Resident January 21, 2017 (11:32 am)

    You call that spilled over? That’s piss poor planning. Looks like chaos to me. Good luck finding a bathroom too.

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (11:49 am)

      As explained in something I saw, Judkins Park was the biggest park that could be found. And given that the march is currently going on 2 miles long, I would imagine the turnover is far beyond what was expected. I have a map of the current reported (by SPD) length in this tweet.

      https://twitter.com/westseattleblog/status/822893159768174592

      • just wow January 21, 2017 (11:55 am)

        Two mile long march? What’s the estimate of crowd size?

    • Julia January 21, 2017 (2:53 pm)

      There were ample portapotties at the park and at various points along the way.

    • Y-Ma January 21, 2017 (3:37 pm)

      Hi Alki –

      it was actually quite orderly – rather than chaos.

      and there were lots of porta potties at the park and along the route.

      many folks also took into account that it was going to be a long day, so tried to limit liquid intake

    • Erico January 22, 2017 (11:10 am)

      Alki resident – rest easy,  very orderly.  And lots of portapotties all along the way with reasonable lines.  Thanks for your concern,  hope that helps put your mind at ease!

  • Rebecca January 21, 2017 (11:56 am)

    Are the protesters spilling over on to I-5 and I-90? My SigAlert app is saying there are people on the road and that is causing the delays on the freeways. 

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (12:06 pm)

      Police have this under close supervision per scanner and Twitter. The marchers are on city streets, not freeways.

      • WSB January 21, 2017 (12:10 pm)

        Meantime, per scanner, the head of the march is likely to reach the end of the route (Seattle Center) before everyone finishes leaving the start of the route … 3 1/2 miles away.

  • Greg January 21, 2017 (12:13 pm)

    How can the broadcast news ignore this?

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (12:26 pm)

      Greg, they’re not “ignoring” it. They’ve been streaming it live online & covering on web and social media. TV over the air is a very small part of what “television” does nowadays. Kind of the same way that printed publications are a very small part of what “newspaper” organizations do. – TR

  • Rebecca January 21, 2017 (12:14 pm)

    Thank you so much for that update! Much appreciated :)

  • Gina January 21, 2017 (12:35 pm)

    Looking at the live stream of the parade route, the library is right on it. The public library has family restrooms on the 1st floor floor for those under 13 in the Children’s area, and gendered restrooms on the 1st, 4th and 7th floors. Changing tables are also available in the restrooms. 

    The library is located between 4th and 5th Avenues, bordered by Spring and Madison.

    The Seattle Center has many public restrooms.

  • Yolanda January 21, 2017 (1:07 pm)

    I’m at uptown espresso and not sure if if smallgroup is here or not . Anyone have any info ?

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (1:08 pm)

      Yolanda – We photographed them about 15 minutes ago as they headed up California, east side of the street. I tweeted but haven’t posted here yet. I don’t know what route they were taking – TR

  • Diane January 21, 2017 (1:12 pm)

    agree with Greg (and thank you); TV “news” covers live on all local TV channels when there’s a football parade; but zero coverage on TV of this VERY important women’s march; not everyone has access to high speed internet to “stream” whatever they are putting online; thank god the DC Women’s March was shown live on TV on CSPAN; Seattle TV “news” should be showing our Women’s March ‘live’ on TV (instead of stupid damn not-even-local sports); sadly, I’m aware that our local TV “news” are really no longer local, but owned by billion dollar corporations, which explains part of it; but still, Seattle gets live TV coverage of football parade, but no live TV coverage of much larger and much more important women’s march; yes, that is “ignoring” it, and one more reason women are marching; to NOT be ignored

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (1:28 pm)

      I am by no means defending the business in which I worked for more than 20 years … I quit it quite on purpose almost a decade ago and am thrilled to be able to make a living doing this instead … but I’m sorry to tell you, this is how their business works. TV stations are not truly, fully local, and cannot easily just dump whatever network or paid programming is on their air right now. Also keep in mind that the ownership corporation of KING, Tegna, recently shut down its regional cable channel, or else that might have been one place to show live local coverage. They did pay to fly their choppers today, which is not a small expense. But I urge you to send them notes, call, post on their social-media pages, whatever, if you really want to let them know how you feel, if you haven’t already. Over-the-air (and cable) TV is a dying service. If you can’t get high-speed internet, agitating for making that available as a public utility might be an even more productive use of time (again, if you aren’t already), because video will eventually only be available that way – TR

      • Greg January 21, 2017 (1:43 pm)

        I echo Diane in my appreciation for WSB and the vital role it plays in our community.  TV broadcast is also important and by not breaking programming they send a message that the 130,000 plus voices in Seattle, right now, don’t really matter.

    • Sunuva January 21, 2017 (1:47 pm)

      The live streaming coverage by komo, king, and q13 are all just silent helicopter footage. At the very least they could’ve brought an anchor on to give some coverage to listen to. Watching a silent helicopter feed is interesting for about 5 seconds.

      • WSB January 21, 2017 (2:08 pm)

        KING had anchors on their feed earlier. The feed was janky so I was just recommending KIRO, whose feed worked well, at least via our connection/machine. Speaking as a former executive producer who spent many, many hours in the hot seat in the control booth working with ad-libbing anchors during live coverage, I can also tell you that narrating two hours of an aerial of a big crowd – once the speeches had ended at 11-ish – would be close to impossible, also. There’s a lot of technological improvement that could facilitate reporting from the ground, on the move, without a microwave or satellite truck, but there are still signal/capacity deficiencies in megacrowd situations – a manager at one local TV station mentioned that even in a place like DC, they couldn’t get images from their crew because the cell system was overloaded. – TR

  • Yolanda January 21, 2017 (1:17 pm)

    Thank you for checking in  ! I guess I missed them since I’ve been inside the cafe looking out for a group . Not sure how I missed them outside .

  • Diane January 21, 2017 (1:17 pm)

    ps; thank you WSB for covering this very important Women’s
    March

  • JayDee January 21, 2017 (1:36 pm)

    I agree. I keep trying to see the live feed from King 5 and while the ACURA commercial comes through fine the “live” feed dies with 30-60 seconds.  And who knows if it is live. On the TV I see infomercials and golf/sports events.

  • Greg January 21, 2017 (2:23 pm)

    I called KIRO and KOMO and spoke with a live person and politely asked them to break their programming.

  • KJK88 January 21, 2017 (3:09 pm)

    Took my 2 granddaughters down to the march. We left Alki on the 50 at 10:45 am.   Missed one full C line bus.  The next one came 2 minutes later and was not full.  As we continued downtown the bus did fill up. Got off at 3rd and Seneca, walked to the Seattle Public Library used their facilities and waited for the march to pass by.  Just after 12 pm we stepped onto the streets with the marchers and continued till Westlake.  Very peaceful all around both marchers and those lined along the route.  Walked back to 3rd and Pine to catch the C line back to West Seattle along with many others.  Such a positive, memorable experience for all of us. 

  • 22blades January 21, 2017 (5:24 pm)

    I parked my car on Capitol Hill and took the rail to Westlake. On the way back, Police & Transit personnel were directing the crowds to just get on the next available car. No payment required. I really appreciate Metro Transit & Seattle Police’s low key presence. The bicycle patrol in advance of the protest were cheered coming down the chute.

    • WSB January 21, 2017 (5:36 pm)

      I saw video of that on Twitter. And the final tally is … zero arrests/incidents.

  • Theress January 21, 2017 (5:39 pm)

    Agree about cell coverage.  I was unable to get messages or texts to go I presume just due to the sheer numbers of folks in same area using cells.   Great day

  • Carole A Allen January 21, 2017 (8:29 pm)

    I was able to get a C bus about 10:15 in the junction.  No one was left behind on that bus.  Some family parked at Mercer St garage and monorailed to Westlake where i met them, and we joined in the walk as more family arrived from Judkins Park.  Lots of families, all ages. All ethnicities.  Peaceful crowd.  Invigorating!  Westlake Center was on lockdown, barriers near doors, escalators shut down and barricaded.  Police were polite, friendly, helpful.

Sorry, comment time is over.