I've been to Seattle maybe half a dozen times so I've been trying to do this by maps.

The team will be ambushed by a Go-Gang on I-5 southbound at Exit 168A which is blocked by the burning wreck of their last victims. As their meet is in Tacoma, the team will probably decline to take the 168B exit that runs towards Redmond but will find Exit 167 is under construction. I'm estimating 1600 meters between exits 168A & 167. At maximum speed for their stolen GMC Hermes Van that's 16 rounds. By this time the Violence Channel rotor drone will have joined the astrally projecting Lonestar mage in observing the situation.

16 more rounds (at max speed) brings them to Exit 166 which leads into the Downtown Business District where, if the team has used autofire, explosives or magic in their escape from the gang they will find a Lonestar Earth Elemental with the spirit power of Fear blocking the Exit.

16 more rounds (at max speed) brings them to Exit 165B which is blocked by a LoneStar Chrysler-Nissan Patrol-1 with an Earth Elemental as backup.

8 more rounds (at max speed) brings them to Exit 165A which will be blocked by a Lonestar Citymaster with a squad of cops in Riot gear.

8 more rounds they come to Exit 164 which gives them the options of continuing south on interstate 5, turning west onto Dearborn that runs into the International district (Yakuza territory if I remember right) or turning east onto hwy 90 that leads to the Mt. Baker Tunnel before crossing the bridge to Council Island.

All of this is based upon the assumption that the team can't realistically get off of the stretch of freeway described above. If I remember right I-5 is elevated through the downtown area and has concrete barriers on both sides of the road except at the exits.

Is this correct? Other than not getting on the freeway in the first place, is there anyway out of this trap other than running the gauntlet?

Thanx in advance for any help

That's about right in terms of distance and height, yeah. If you're running along the edge of the I-5 at around 167 and tried to exit the freeway without the offramp, you'd have a roughly 100-150 foot fall depending on if you hit the embankment. Otherwise it's not just a drop - it's a significant drop. Once you pass the 167/Mercer St. embankment, the drop lessens, but not by a whole lot. It finally flattens out to 'slightly above street level (5-10 feet) once you pass Denny Way.

Exits 165 A and B are underneath the Washington State Convention Center - the entire freeway just drives right under the thing in this mess of underground & semi-exposed interlocking streets with the convention complex squatting on top of all of them. The exits in here are two tunnels.

Past this, it's either elevated again, or has big anti-noise-pollution walls that will physically bar them from exiting the road.

The ways off of this are as follows: Take the 168B onto the 520 towards Redmond. You can very shortly after that slip off into the U-District, and proceed on surface streets - OR flip a u-turn and rocket back out onto I-5 or Capitol Hill, depending on how you do it.

If they wanted to move fast and lose the pursuit, they'd jump onto the 520 and flip the U turn back into Cap Hill. From there, head to Denny Way and shoot down across Downtown or South Lake Union so they could hit the 99/Alaskan Way Viaduct, because you can get a long way pretty fast on that street, and it runs right by the docks and other lower-security areas. The trick would be getting there from the 5 without Lone Star.

wow,I lived there for 3 years, and i couldn't tell you that much

Having been there every summer for most of my life, I can say that the description is accurate, though I couldn't point out flaws (i.e. I could not tell you if there is an exit 169A and 169B or just a 169...or even the existence of a 169 for that matter, though I can assume it exists).

Assuming that you are correct in that there are no remaining exits to take, they have two options: running the gauntlet or not getting on the freeway.

Though I suppose they could try to jump the barrier and land on top of a building (the REI building might be a good choice: it's 3 stories tall and has a distinctive rock climbing wall encased in glass windows on one corner).

*Google Maps!*

Just north of the 167 exit, and on the right (correct) side to "jump" off.

It won't work though. http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/10373725.jpg glass'd area just visible to the right.

Ah, here we go. Somewhere between Pine and Pike streets, the freeway dives underground, therefore if they jumped the barrier they'd land on...one of those streets (Pike, unfortunately, has traffic going in the wrong direction for the easy landing, but Contention does and there are some minor (entrance/exit ramps? Appears to be the terminus of exit 167) that parallel the freeway and end up at that intersection).

I live off of Mercer, and commute via the 520, so it's a daily sort of drive for me.

Those response times are amazingly fast - 16 turns is 48 seconds. I'm guessing that most of the things you mention are in place well before the runners become aware of the situation, because if this stuff starts at the time the runners enger the scene, you have real plausibility issues. If the stuff is in place, then you have to wonder why runners on a run don't have their own scout drones/astral eyes/matrix watches looking ahead far enough that they can't detour well ahead of ever running into the go-gang.

Might google street view help with this?

chameleon-paint and magical concealment?
just drive by unseen?
or if the car ain't all that important, find a nice secluded spot and get off the road by foot?

Here's a link to 168A going South.

There isn't really a 'secluded spot' along this stretch of road, but if they placed enough distance between themselves and the gang, they could vault the barrier and jump down onto a rooftop or street.

Right after exit 167, where the freeway goes from "above street level" to "below street level."

And if the cops are that close how are the go gangers setting fire to cars on the expressway? That amounts to making Lone Star look bad. The usual fate of gangers who make LS look bad is to get strafed by aerial drones until LS gets bored with shredding the bodies.

But really, this sort of situation kinda demands the three excuse rule. Can you conjure three good excuses for why this happens? I think I can.

The gang attack on the team's delivery truck is just bad timing for the team, as they gang has just attacked and destroyed a bus at the first exit. The gang is in a mood to party and their scorched earth policy this close to downtown by itself should draw attention. However:

1. It's not unreasonable to assume that the downtown business district, being an AAA security zone, will have astrally projecting law enforcement on patrol with spirit backup for immediate intervention.

2. Since we've already seen the introduction of automated traffic cameras and orbital surveillance that are accessible to civilians, it's not unreasonable to assume that in 2070, when virtually every consumer product produced or sold comes with an embedded RFID tracking device you would have significant, and technologically advanced monitoring systems on major freeways, especially when they run through expensive parts of town. If the police are aware of the problem from the beginning they can begin dispatching units immediately, which means the patrol cruiser is likely to be the second unit on the scene.

3. And I find it not unreasonable that in an era of rogue spirits, psychotic cyborgs, and extreme road rage, that the police would have a team of riot cops ready to scramble on short notice, and more importantly, be deployed in strategic locations so as to minimize response time. Next to a freeway isn't a bad choice.

Remember that in Shadowrun automatic weapons fire is a nightly event. If gang of thugs run about the city tossing Molotov cocktails the police have to be prepared and equipped to respond and restore order quickly. Sometimes this means gunfire. But remember that the police, even in Shadowrun, have to answer to somebody, and that somebody doesn't want to see their cops blasting away some 17 year old punk with an SMG on the nightly news. The police are issued tasers for a reason: they're expected to use them.

Now would I grant this level of enforcement to Tacoma or Everett? Probably not. The property values in downtown are much higher than anywhere else in the city, which means downtown gets the priority treatment. After all, it's the corps that pay the bills, right? But the same basics apply in any civilized part of the metroplex, even if the enforcement is a bit slower.

After all, it's not like I gave the police close air support.

Hey, that's an idea...

Likely this thread is a moot point now, but I happened to drive through this area the other day and took a good look. My suggestion of hopping the barrier was actually better than I thought:
Right around exit 166 (I was trying hard to pay attention to where, but I can only say it was after exit 167 and before Freeway Park (that's where I-5 goes underground for a bit near exit 165/166)) there was a spot where the barrier between the freeway and a grassy patch before a parallel road was merely a guardrail. It'd be hard to make the "exit" while speeding along at 70, but it'd be doable, there wasn't an incline (freeway was maybe 10 feet lower than the street) and no hard objects in the way, though it was narrow as the jersey barrier ended just prior to a bridge, so the guard rail filled the 30 to 40 foot gap.

Although it does bring up the question of "Does Freeway Park still exist in 2070?"