Wedgwood in Seattle History

A car in the ditch…. and then another and another.

Car in the ditch along NE 110th Street nearest to the corner of 31st Ave NE. Photo courtesy of the Thornton Creek Watershed Restoration Project.

Over the past three years, residents of the Meadowbrook neighborhood in Seattle often noticed cars in the ditch on the north side of NE 110th Street nearest to the corner of 31st Ave NE.

With school athletic fields on both sides of NE 110th, it was apparent that cars were parking along there when spectators came to watch football or soccer games at the schools.

Since they first began keeping a tally in 2021, neighbors have counted seventeen cars in the ditch.

In 2021 a volunteer group formed to do something about this, based upon environmental concerns.  It’s not just a ditch along NE 110th Street — the water flowing there is actually part of a creek system.  Steps needed to be taken to prevent illegal parking, restore the landscaping and restore the ability of the soil to filter contaminants out of the water entering the creek, such as rain and roadway runoff.

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The Thornton Creek Watershed of northeast Seattle has two main branches, North and South.  These branches converge at The Confluence in the Meadowbrook neighborhood at NE 107th Street, on the east side of 35th Ave NE across from Nathan Hale High School.

Now called Meadowbrook Pond Natural Area, the site serves to hold and filter the water before the converged Thornton Creek mainstream flows out to Lake Washington at Matthews Beach on NE 93rd Street.

Meadowbrook Pond in autumn. Photo by Valarie.

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