There is a map that shows all stairways in the city of Seattle, at around 650, including suggested walking routes and more information.
This was part of a blogger’s New Year’s resolution to map, climb, and photograph all stairways in the city in 2010. Seattle All Stairs has a map of all the stairways in the city as well as 29 different walks to take.
Years ago, before the internet was invented, I wrote an article for the Seattle Weekly about the history of Seattle’s staircases, including the longest (at Pigeon Point near the west Seattle bridge), and the longest continuous (E. Howe). One of the fascinating things is that some of the staircases were built from Seattle’s original light rail system, which, when it was torn up, the city wisely save its component parts. The rails became supports for many staircase railings, and the concrete slabs between the rails became the steps.
Seattle All Stairs purports to have mapped 650 stairways, while SDOT only claims to look after 480+. It might be a matter of criteria (perhaps SDOT doesn’t consider 3 stairs a “stairway”), and ownership is probably also tricky: many of the Downtown stairs on All Stairs are likely Privately Owned Public Spaces; and I suspect stairs on Parks property are considered Parks’ responsibility and not SDOT’s. But given the sorry state of a lot of Seattle’s stairways and the difference in tallies of nearly 200, I can’t help but wonder if SDOT has actually lost track of some of the public stairways around town and is entirely unaware of their existence. Of course, if SDOT would just publish its own stairway map, I wouldn’t have to wonder. It seems amazing that despite having bike maps, walking maps, and even a map of shoreline streetends, and despite the fact that for years they’ve been one of the most unique and talked-about aspects of our transportation system, there’s still no official SDOT map of all our public stairways.
I have also been working on walks that feature the stairs with guides that could be printed – this is a lot of work and I hope people will find them fun and helpful!