Lake Washington Boulevard — Ramps, Dumps, Pontoons

Sal on SR 520 Eastbound: Seattle to Redmond · Oct 29, 2026 · 3m

Sal: Between Lake Washington Boulevard and Eighty-Fourth Avenue. Sal: For decades, a set of concrete ramps stood in the wetlands at the north end of the Washington Park Arboretum, connected to nothing. They were built in the early 1960s to link this highway to the R.H. Thomson Expressway, a planned north-south highway that would have cut through the east side of the Arboretum, and through Rainier Valley, the Central District, Madison Park and Montlake. The ramps were never connected. Sal: People called them the ramps to nowhere. Over the decades they became popular with sunbathers and…