Mountains to Sound Greenway

Our plan of action is to connect the green way to all. With Washington's Vast forests. Meadow-strewn mountain peaks. Small farms that feed city markets. Rural communities, keepers of our region’s colorful past. Vibrant cities where people want to live and companies want to locate. Broad swaths of land for wildlife to roam. Hundreds of places for skiing and hiking, kayaking and cycling. That’s the Mountains to Sound Greenway. Weaving together the urban and the wild, the Greenway connects 1.5 million acres surrounding Interstate 90, including the 15th-largest metropolis in the United States. More than 800,000 acres of land are now publicly owned, from city parks to expansive public forests. Another 90,000 acres are conserved as permanent private forests. What do such numbers add up to? Breathing room. The perspective on life only an ancient tree can bring. Incomparable beauty. Even this stretch of interstate highway, so commonly the province of strip malls and billboards, is instead the country’s first to be designated a National Scenic Byway. How rare. This vision—of the way life should be, of equal support for economic vitality and nature—is not static. It is brought into being every day in the Greenway.