Pike Place Market limited cars a year ago, and the experiment continues

Rachel Ligtenberg was admiring Pike Place Market's new flower planters when two vehicles drove by, drawing her attention.

There's a working farmer," said Ligtenberg, who leads the Market's Preservation & Development Authority, pointing at one. "And there's someone with a placard" for disabled parking.

In other words, under the year-old rules keeping many vehicles off the Market's squat brick roads, those two are allowed. So too were the crowds wandering around on a recent sunny afternoon, browsing and buying goods from among the Market's 200 commercial tenants and 500 craftspeople, not to mention the ever-present 450 residents who live there.

After a mayoral nudge, and the fortuitous timing of some utility work hindered traffic, Market leaders decided to try keeping cars to a minimum for the first time in Pike Place's long history.

Despite a full turn of the seasons, the Market has yet to finalize any arrangement about when and why to close the street to cars, as it works with the city, the police and fire departments, and Market community groups to determine if, and how, cars will be limited after Labor Day.

Still, with the year behind them, Market leaders have a better understanding of how to stop wayward motorists from driving down the historic brick streets, with a range of road closures planned throughout the summer.

It won't be car-free, and never was. But those flower planters Ligtenberg was admiring will play a big role, strategically placed to help block critical access points on streets leading to the heart of the action, as the Market alternates between fully blocking its roads and a more porous approach.

"This is a true working market," Ligtenberg said, explaining why vehicles still roll through on the regular.

"There is no central loading dock, so we need to have a corridor that supports operations of the Market," she said, noting that at the same time "there is a general sentiment of support from the general public for anything that limits vehicles."

That constellation of people and uses of the Market has kept Ligtenberg on her toes in the 18 months since she took over management of Pike Place as president and CEO of the Authority. Especially considering one of her first tasks was implementing the limited-car pilot - a priority following former Mayor Bruce Harrell's call for the Market to better protect its streets after a motorist drove his pickup through a New Year's crowd in New Orleans last year, killing 14 people on popular Bourbon Street. Harrell's plea was followed by some well-timed Seattle Public Utilities work that blocked traffic and helped kick off the trial.

For Ligtenberg, that's meant not just protecting people from such a horrific act, but also guarding the Market's identity - and its bottom line.

So far, so good, she said. From the outside, however, it can seem a bit confusing.

Declarations of the Market going "car-free" muddied the matter as advocates pushed for a permanent closure of the street, likening the idea to the policies of popular pedestrian markets around the world. Others cited history as their guide, saying the Market has always welcomed cars and always should - eliding the fact that it opened in 1907, when cars still looked like wagons without horses and just 140,300 cars were registered in the U.S., about a third of what's registered in Seattle alone these days.

"We're still trying to figure out what the right mix is," said Radcliffe Dacanay, who works with the Market on the street closure for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "If you ask anybody on the street, as a customer, it's no surprise they'd probably say, 'Yeah, I love that the street is closed to cars.' You ask somebody else who is driving in there to do a delivery, they'd have a different answer."

Cars down, business up

Either way, the Market has its own answer.

From Memorial Day through Labor Day and perhaps longer, the Market will operate under a "soft closure" for most of the workweek. A street attendant will be in place at First Avenue and Pike Street, allowing entry to deliveries, drivers with disabled placards and emergency vehicles. Signs that used to read "Street Closed" have been swapped out for signs that say "Working Market - Authorized Vehicles Only."

The roads will be fully closed from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday, when 700-pound mobile barriers will be placed next to the flower planters. A street attendant will still monitor First and Pike, but they will allow only emergency vehicles to enter - which require special equipment to move the barriers - and hand out cards to drivers directing them to the nearest garage or delivery vehicle parking.

The Market will be fully closed to vehicles during events that draw big crowds. That included the Flower Festival earlier this month, as well as Welcoming the World Night Market, FIFA World Cup match days, Produce on Pike events and the recently created summer Sip & Savor events.

While not that intuitive, the rules are a winning combination, said Dacanay. He said limiting cars last summer led to a more than 80% reduction in nonessential vehicles entering the Market, he said.

"Basically we were turning away the tourist vehicle. We were turning away the vehicle that didn't need to be there," Dacanay said, adding that the number of delivery vehicles didn't change. "Having somebody there to manage access helps that."

The turning away of vast numbers of cars didn't affect business, according to data presented last month to Market leaders.

In 2025, for instance, 7 million people visited the Market and spent more than $200 million there. That's 200,000 more people and $12.3 million more than the year before.

Retail sales accounted for $37 million in 2025, up more than 9% from 2024. And sales at produce stands went up by 8%, to more than $3.6 million last year.

Ligtenberg acknowledged that the pilot to limit cars coincided with the opening of Overlook Walk - the sprawling set of staircases and platforms that connects the Market to the refurbished waterfront.

Another change was among the sentiments of the Market's many business owners and vendors. They said they were happy with the ease of loading and unloading, according to a survey by the University of Washington's Urban Freight Lab. Farmers, in particular, were happy about the reduced competition for parking spaces.

Still, some said the 30 minutes for loading and unloading wasn't long enough, and said they and delivery drivers need more leniency from parking enforcement. Some said they were concerned that pedestrians were more hostile toward vehicles.

Ligtenberg hears it all and takes it to heart, but said the overarching sentiment is positive as the summer season begins, and before long-term decisions are made, including from the Market Historical Commission, which approved the street changes through the end of September.

Requests for comment from the commission were not returned, and Zachary Pullin, a city spokesperson, said members of city boards and commissions "are generally discouraged from speaking to the media" without pointing to any specific policy.

"We are here as stewards of the Market," Ligtenberg said. "And there is a lot of support for the plan for this summer.

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