City Streetcar!
posted by on July 8 at 11:42 AM
If only our city council had the guts to act like duly elected representatives operating under a republican form of government.
Or something.
Our duly elected representatives clearly want to build a few more streetcar lines to compliment the under-patronized, go-nowhere, sawed-off-runt of a streetcar line currently ferrying a half a dozen or more commuters per week up Paul Allen’s ass—excuse me, through South Lake Union. Streetcar lines out to Ballard and up to Capitol Hill and over to the U-District might actually attract riders because, you see, they would actually go places where large numbers of people live, work, dine out, etc. So you wanna build more streetcar lines, guys? Take a motherfucking vote. And if the votes are there, then fund more streetcar lines and build the damn things. Or not. Whatever you do, though, please don’t subject us to a two- or three-year-long “process” that involves endless public hearings and that merely serve to empower every batshit “stakeholder” in the city.
“I can’t conceive that you are even thinking about this on First Avenue,” said a woman speaking at a public meeting at City Hall last Wednesday. She manages several buildings along the proposed Central Line, which stretches from Seattle Center to King Street Station, mainly along First Avenue.
We went through this with the Monorail—remember hearing from property owners up and down Second Avenue who couldn’t conceive of a monorail line running past their properties? And remember hearing how the Monorail was going to spoil the quiet tranquility of the Memorial Garden under Benaroya Hall? (That would be the same Memorial Garden whose “quiet tranquility” somehow isn’t spoiled by a Starbucks or a bustling entrance to the bus tunnel.) And remember hearing how a monorail line from Ballard to West Seattle through the downtown core wasn’t the best possible place to put the line for a long overdue start on a city-wide mass transit system?
The Monorail—despite winning three public votes (or was it four?)—was ultimately talked to death. By the time the Monorail hit what would have been a typical-for-a-major-project financial crisis (Sound Transit, anyone?) that an agency with some backing from the powers-that-be could weather (Sound Transit, anyone?), the yack-yack-yack process had delayed and dragged out the Monorail project for so long that voters had lost confidence in it—they lost confidence in themselves, in their own judgement—and the bleeding project was axed.
Now, of course, as we yack-yack-yack about tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and yack-yack-yack about capacity and moving the same number of people, not the same number of cars, through the downtown core, we could really use a mass-transit line that ran from West Seattle to Ballard through the downtown core. But nevermind. The Monorail is dead. Elevated transit is dead. Long live fixed-rail, street-grade, likely-to-get-stuck-in-traffic mass transit. But let’s not talk it to death this time, huh? Let’s build it—more light rail lines serving the region and more streetcar lines serving the city’s neighborhoods.
And let’s be honest about something as we push to build the kind of mass transit infrastructure—light rail, streetcars, buses that feed into those rail lines—that will lower our carbon emissions, make it possible for more people to live in the city without owning cars, allow developers to build dense housing without parking requirements, etc. It’s an issue raised by another empowered ranter/stakeholder at last Wednesday’s meeting:
“Do streetcars do anything more than buses?” asked a man at the same meeting. “It seems like a transportation plan driven by cuteness.”
Buses are always and everywhere the mass transit solution most favored by people that don’t ride mass transit. Buses are slow and unpleasant and… let’s be honest, shall we? Buses are unlovely. They’re unlovely to ride and they’re unlovely to look at.
When it comes to constructing something as large and unavoidable as a mass-transit system, “cuteness” should count for something. Why shouldn’t we take aesthetics into account? Why not invest more money in a transit system that provides, as an incentive to riders, a lovelier riding experience? Wouldn’t people that don’t ride mass transit themselves still prefer to see swift, sleek, comparatively quiet streetcars gliding past their offices and homes than loud, lumbering, noisy, exhaust-spewing buses?
Cities invest in “cuteness” all the time. We spend money maintaining parks—we don’t just leave some acres aside here and there, let the weeds grow, and call it “open space.” We blew up the Kingdome because it was ugly and replaced it with the much cuter—and way, way more expensive—Safeco Field. We tore down our ugly city hall and replaced it with that far lovelier terrarium. We tore down our ugly but perfectly functional old main library and replaced it with a much lovelier homeless shelter.
You can play baseball games more cheaply in an empty lot. You can lend books more cheaply from the back of a van. But we’ve got a cute baseball stadium and a cute downtown library because aesthetics matter. Cuteness matters—even to something as utilitarian as a mass-transit system.
My favorite thing about all this is that there are so many examples of transit working in other cities. Its like the anti transit people are living in a world where this hasn't been done. Jesus Seattle you have Portland to the south and then Chicago, NY, Boston, DC... all showing that transit works. Boston especially is an example of a mix between street cars and heavy rail. Yes it isn't perfect but it's pretty fucking great. I hate anti transit people almost as much as republicans.
BTW did you know Denver is expanding their light rail AND building a 6 billion commuter rail network.
What the hell is wrong with Seattle. Its got a lot more money and people than Denver.
I think it was four. Then it got voted down when they forced a fifth, under false pretenses.
Buses are "un-lovely" because they aren't maintained properly, and someone thought a "free-ride zone" was a good idea. The same problems could plague an underfunded streetcar proposal. If you want to do a fixed-mass transit system, at least fund it properly, and give it a devoted, SLUTs only lane, and that needs to be the case for any expansion of the streetcar idea. What happens to the street-car the next time there's a traffic jam on Westlake?
HERE! HERE!
LOL, sums it up nicely
“Do streetcars do anything more than buses?” asked a man at the same meeting. “It seems like a transportation plan driven by cuteness.”
I know everybody hates the Free Ride Zone, but it has another function besides encouraging ridership by making it free (and thus letting stinky homeless people on). The real reason for the RFZ is that it speeds buses up because they don't have to stop for fare collection. Buses that have to stop and collect fares, in a zone that has very high traffic and is also forced by geography into a narrow-waisted pattern, move much more slowly through the system, reducing their value.
I don't see Metro bringing back bus conductors anytime soon.
Well put.
Geez, like people don't buy and enjoy their cars based upon cuteness.
Well said!
@6: as someone who rides through the Free Ride Zone every weekday, my experience has been that any time gained through the FRZ is returned with interest once you leave. Since people are entering through any door, the crowding is seriously annoying (no natural progression towards the back as new people go on). Getting off is nearly impossible since you can't leave through the back door, so instead you either have to push through the crowd of people (usually I'm getting off in Capitol Hill anywhere between 5-6:30, so peak hours) to the front, or you hope the bus driver gets annoyed and lets you off in the back (which means a lot of people aren't paying at all). It doesn't really help anything.
I think we need more public meetings and a few revotes before we decide about planning for the possibility of doing something about transit.
Oh, and let's hold some public initiatives too, and discuss that.
@2 for the win.
Invest our scarce transit dollars in a "true" expansion of the electric trolley buses that can be implemented more inexpensively and can move past minor blockages on the streets and are "cleaner" for the environment than diesel.
I don't know, maybe cuteness does matter. But I see a whole lot more folks riding on the poor old bus, and even strap-hanging on a hot day, because of the freakin cost of fuel.
I like the SLUT, it's cute--mainly because it's new. Urban yutes have yet to scratch inane graffiti in every window, but that will come. My main beef is the streetcar seems to hold less than half the passenger load of an articulated bus. Which is fine as long as only tourists are using it.
As for the studies that show more people will ride streetcars than buses, I say let those without the fortitude to ride urban mass transit continue to drop $80 a week into their gas tanks. Wusses.
Buses jerk, swerve, have numbers on them that don't tell the unfamiliar anything about their route, get hot, are cramped, and are in most ways painful to ride in stop and go traffic.
Streetcars aren't as ideal as an underground or overhead transport, but they accelerate and stop relatively smooth, tend to be nicely climate controlled, have more space to move about inside, and the tracks tell you exactly where the train is going.
Streetcars are 100x better for city travel than buses.
Amen, Dan. Well put. And @10, totally. Not to mention the number of fare jumpers who waltz off the bus without even thinking of paying. Death to the RFZ.
Give no quarter! Hold the line! We MUST demand this streetcar nonsense stop -- it has absolutely nothing to do with how cute they are, but rather with how effective they are -- or aren't. A disconnected, street-grade transit system IS NOT A SOLUTION. It's a BUS with fewer stops -- what some cities call a "Limited". The buses here suck worse because there are stops every other motherfucking block. Even if the streetcar is a glorified, short-distance limited stop bus, it's still stuck in traffic, and it's still disconnected from eachother making your trip a video-game worthy puzzle of froggering your way to the next transfer.
The solution -- the ONLY solution worth investing in -- is a monorail or subway. THE END.
I blogged about the trolley network yesterday. I received information from Seattle Council Member Nick Licata--the one fiscally responsible member of the group that thinks that the trolley network and the recommended Mercer fix are way too expensive. It has some good facts and data and he wants to get the word out. I also included the dates of upcoming forums. emeraldcitytalk.com/wordpress
I wish the $5 a gallon gas had happened three years ago. Construction would have started on the Monorail by now, if it had...
Do we dare try a fourth, or is it fifth, time? Or should we wait until gas is $7 a gallon?
Put more busses on now. On all major overcrowded routes.
Make some busses better, too. Better service and better cuteness factor.
Have a few that are point to point express, some with reserved sesats via internet, some with seats that must be M-F all month at the same time, some that are more costly, with reading lights and cupholders; more van pools, too, with more variety of vans. Let people buy their own van and pick routes and charge people for rides. Neighbor to neighbor.
We need a quick expansion of transit and waiting years for talking and building things takes too long.
Meanwhile you will never have a good rapid transit system without connecting the 99 corridor in the city with grade separated which means (a) elevated or (b) underground. Perhaps an elevated can go thru the waterfront post Viaduct.
The demise of the monorail was due to refusal by city leaders to help make it work. They used Rovian tactics to continue to protest an $11 B cost when that was not true -- when the proposal was for $1.7 B project cost and with finance and operating costs it was $4.9 B (using the MVET growth rate suggested by the mayor's economist). (This after we cut the line). This would have added 12 stations, plus preserving Ballard real estate for future stations (just needing a few hundred million more to add them in and add a few trains).
This would have linked with the light rail, allowing those in Roosevelt to cruise to Westlake, transfer and get to ballard in 20 minutes, and letting those at the airport come up via light rail, transfer and go to West Seattle, etc.
In contrast, a street car network is likely to cost about $600 million in capital cost and not provide rapid transit.
Also in contrast, ST's last proposal was for about $10 B (unfinanced) (or $30B financed) to add some 23 stations reaching out far to Mill Creek and Fife, etc., leaving West Seattle and Ballard not connected and with no plan for a connection at all
$10B for 23 stations of service reaching far out, versus $1.7 B for 12 stations closer together in the city.
It's a bit strange to argue we make bad decisions now (spend $600 million for a street car network that doesn't help anyone go any faster than you can go on a bus) because we made bad decisions earlier.
How about some good decisions-- like just starting with a large bus expansion over the next two years, especially express buses and buses to relieve overcrowding and thus make the transit trips better and faster?
I don't know, maybe we ought to get the Waterfront Streetcar running again and extend it out to the ID and beyond (which is a really good idea, as Jackson Street is actually wide enough to handle it) before spending umpteen bajillion dollars duplicating light rail service to the U-District down Eastlake Avenue (which is very very narrow), or running a streetcar up 1st Avenue (which is also quite narrow) that will be passed by buses like it's standing still.
And those nothing little transit systems in dumpy little burgs such as Chicago, New York, and London rely heavily on buses, even if the Kewl Kidz like Savage don't like them.
anyone what to take a guess at what the ridership on the Monorail WOULD have been, in this time of high gas prices, if it was running today as originally planned? I'm guessing it would be PACKED every fucking day. I'm still angry about it
Oh, since when is it unreasonable to ask the public to vote on a $600+ million expenditure?
Why does the Stranger hate democracy?
@ 1: Add the Twin Cities to your list of places that show transit works (one light rail line built, and one more and a city to suburb commuter rail line in the works.)
And OMFG do I despise kneejerk anti-transit types. I reserve my most potent bile for people who whine about "my tax dollars subsidizing inefficient mass transit" regardless of the merits of a proposed project. Its especially galling hearing that refrain from sub- or ex-urban dwellers who drive everywhere, and apparently believe that roads and bridges build, police and maintain themselves at no cost whatsoever to anyone. Freakin' morons.
Anyway, my sympathies to pro-transit Seattlites. Keep up the fight!
Yeah so there should be no talking about this. Just voting. Except Dan Savage, he is allowed to talk about it. Because his perspective is so much more important than everyone else.
Dan, I think your elitist sense of aesthetics is getting the better of you. No, buses are not cute; they do however possess a gritty, working class ruggedness that some people will find more appealing than the effete streetcar.
Seriously, I ride the bus a lot, and don't really see myself taking a streetcar anytime soon as long as it keeps duplicating existing bus routes. I would much rather see more frequent bus service than an expansion of the streetcar line, because I think it would be a better use of money.
I'm concerned that the focus is on making mass transit more palatable for the middle class, when there are a lot of people just getting by who can't afford to live in Seattle proper but have to commute into the city for work. If taking the commuter buses doesn't work for them, they drive; I would like to see some attempts to provide better transportation choices for them also.
Finally, you used the word "compliment" instead of "complement." Tsk. Totally undermines your credibility.
The streetcar is cute but the seats are too small - no leg room. And if they don't figure out how to collect the fare it will go bust in a year. But it is a nice ride to the Park and shows off the new city being built around it.
First, on fee collection, I feel pretty strongly that public transit in this region should rely solely on computerized card passes and ticket books that people have to buy in advance. That would speed everything up immensely. If cards and books were for sale at every ATM and every store checkout in the city, it would be easy to do away with the free zone downtown (hotels could give their guests free passes with a city subsidy).
Second, European cities often have streetcars. Why?
* Low emissions! Streetcars have only as big a carbon footprint as power generation for the city does. In Seattle, hydropower = streetcars are way more environmentally friendly than buses.
* Route expansibility: for heavily used routes, you would have to run multiple buses with multiple drivers (and the larger buses use way more gas, too). Streetcars can simply add lots of extra cars but stay with one driver (lower cost to operate).
* Frequency: because you need fewer drivers than with a bus system, you can run more streetcars per time period than you can buses on the same route.
* Lower cost of ownership and maintenance compared to buses.
* Streetcars that are installed on wide tracks can run on light rail lines (not sure if Seattle has had that foresight).
* European streetcars often run in HOV lanes, if existing, and they have stoplight prioritization technology built in. Seattle's system should have that, too.
* Elegance: let's face it. Streetcars look and smell and sound better than buses.
Um, Simac,
* Lower cost of ownership and maintenance compared to buses.
@21 raises a good point - want to try for a SIXTH vote? Just from West Seattle to Ballard and go with smaller scale stations? Land prices are dropping right now ...
Monorail, anyone?
The monorail was killed because wealthy, powerful interests opposed it. The SLUT was built because wealthy, powerful interests wanted it.
We should just ask Paul Allen et al what kind of mass transit they'd like us to have and then build it. After 15 years in Seattle I've learned that "let's put it to a vote" means "let's drag out the process and kill it."
Knowing Paul Allen, we'll probably end up with a streetcar that looks like a spaceship from Space:1999 or perhaps like a giant electric guitar, but it would still be better than the big fat nothing we'll get otherwise.
Is our bus system primarily designed for the disabled? Because I routinely see bus stops within 2 blocks of one another. I saw this last night on the 2 trying to get off at Boren. Hmm... do I take the stop 50 feet after or the one 55 feet before where I want to go? Viva choice!
Sometimes the City Council takes action without a public vote. Such as the new City Hall and the increases in Council pay or campaign donation limits. They can make decisions when it matters to them.
I've never heard anyone give a decent argument as to why streetcars are better than buses, at ~15 times the cost ($3M a mile for buses, ~52M for 1.2m of SLUT- kuow the conversation).
The only way I could support a streetcar is if there was more dedication to their right of way.
Dan I agree with you about needing to do something.
Several years ago, Richard Conlin basically told me that the "Seattle process" was a good thing. Involving the community is one thing and should happen. 2 or 3 years of it though means that the bulk of citizens get screwed.
Back in the 1970's, we could have started with federal money the bones of a good mass transit system. That was killed by process.
Back in the 1990's, we had Sound Transit. Though it passed, it's taking forever to get the basic bones in place for it to be effective. Endless process has slowed that down and cost taxpayers a lot of money.
In this decade, the monorail got killed by "process".
We seem to keep electing people to city council that want to continue this bullshit. They are elected to make some decisions with input. This hasn't happened in Seattle on transportation issues for a long time.
If we really want change, we need to elect people that want to get things done, instead of electing people that are so chicken of the voters that they can't make decisions. Until that happens, you won't see anything move forward in Seattle without it taking a very long time, if at all.
Wow, dunno what happened to my blockquote at 28.
Was just in SF for Apple's iPhone 3G launch. Had to be in South-of-Market (Stranger blog blocks its well known abbreviation) well before 10 a.m. for The Steve's keynote address. I left the house at 5 a.m. by car. 6.30 am Alaska flight unbelievably landed at 8.30 in SF. Walked off with my day bag down to the BART terminal. Train was waiting for me. Short, slightly noisy ride (BART screeches), and I'm at the Powell Station in downtown SF. I walk three blocks. It's 9.05 a.m. when I arrive.
BART has many, many problems, but widespread system availability, convenience, and cost are none of them.
Glenn's post brings up another reason why we should build now even if it's inadequate. For most of its life, BART didn't go to SFO; it stopped at Daly City. It was a hopeless fuckup, caused by San Mateo County refusing to buy into the system. But they fixed it, decades later but they fixed it, because they could.
BART is not a streetcar, though. SF does have them, but they're kind of an annoying adjunct to their other systems, none of which have ever properly worked together. That's a mistake I'd like to see Seattle avoid.
I vote that we make "batshit" and/or "batshitcrazy" the word(s) of the month!!!
Fnarf@28: Agreed that the SLUT costs more to operate. I assume this is an issue of economy of scale on maintenance -- I don't see why the drivers would be paid more, need longer breaks, etc., and absent economy of scale, the cost of maintaining a trolley is presumably about the same as a bus.
But the claim that the trolley carries fewer people than a bus (even articulated) is wrong -- the trolley has fewer (and smaller, ugh) seats, yes, but it accommodates far, far more people standing, so the overall capacity is higher. And since the trolley accelerates smoothly, has multiple doors and wide aisles and handles short trips, standing on a trolley is a much more viable option than standing on a bus.
Anyway, I'm with Dan on this one -- cuteness matters. It's not the only thing, but we shouldn't pretend people would be just as happy to ride a bus as a trolley.
The only transit option that should be up for discussion in Seattle is HOT AIR BALLOONS-a resource for which we have an endless supply, and whose efficacy is on par with the political will of seattle politicians.
really...where are all of our flying cars? sigh. The monorail seems cool. I hate buses, but they work...sort of. It is always nice when you get that crazy bus driver that comes 1/4 of an inch away from a car while making a turn at 50mph! Good times.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you all up in Seattle that you aren't going to have to worry about new transit options, because we, down in Vancouver, are going to take away all of your funding so we can build a huge new bridge!!! It'll be FANTASTIC!!! You can come down and visit and ride the lightrail cars across the bridge!!! :)
I don't want to hear about BART being functional for anything other than
A. Any Airport to S.F.
B. Oakland A's Games/Raiders Games
C. SF. to Berkeley
I grew up in the Bay Area pre Peninsula BART and it still is a useless piece of shit for the most part.
Anything outside of BART talk and Bay Area mass transit is bus and shitty expensive bus (Cal Train is shitty expensive train). I don't know how anyone can mention S.F. in the same breath as NYC when it comes to this.
And to be fair no one did mention S.F. in the same breath as NYC, THANK GOD.
I support mass transit as long as it is big enough in initial design. I would have loved to have seen the monorail be ridiculously more expensive and cover twice as much area. It's fucking worth every cent.
You want your transportation to be aesthetic and cute? Pay for it yourself.
You want to take my money to transport someone else? Build the cheapest crap possible and looks be damned.
Or would you suggest we subsize the buyers of minis and VW bugs?
Cute is good business sense. It lures new businesses, tourists and conventions.
Which would you rather visit: Capetown or Lagos? Manhattan or the Bronx? Omaha or Council Bluffs?
Wow, what creative reinterpretations of monorail history! That project died a horrible death from entirely self-inflicted wounds. Latter day fingerpointing won't change the history.
First, the agency's board (and its free-of-any-transit-experience Exec. Dir.) greatly overestimated revenues from their single, all-eggs-in-one-basket, tax source.
And then, if that wasn't enough, the only bid they received was way over the engineers' estimate.
But instead of coming clean about the huge revenue/cost problem when the bid was opened, they kept the facts hidden for 10 months, before revealing them to an incredulous public.
They only way they could even begin to make the numbers work was by proposing Junk Bonds -- instruments reserved for agencies with the worst bond ratings, for the most thinly-funded projects.
When people saw the bottom line costs they'd have to pay -- interest rates way in excess of what Sound Transit was paying (with its excellent bond rating) -- the jig was up.
No, it's too bad the project failed. It could've filled a valuable role connecting the West Seattle Junction to Market St. in Ballard. Too bad the wrong people were allowed to take charge.
#42 and other BART critics - BART is excellent at doing what it's supposed to, and that is connect people from city core to city core. It isn't a city-wide subway, it's a commuter rail service. Without it, the roads, especially 580 and 880, would be at a constant stand-still. I can get to work on BART in under 15 minutes, door-to-door, and either airport in about 30 minutes. Frickin' good for me, right?
Anyway - those making cost comparisons between rail are bus are wrong as well. There's no comparison, because a bus isn't a solution, so you're spending money on NOTHING. Rail is expensive, but it's part of a solution.
My concern: more street car lines will mess up more good bicycle commute routes just like they have in South Lake Union. Tracks up Eastlake and across the University Bridge would turn a bicycle route with a few dangerous spots into one big danger zone. Bicycles, unlike streetcars, actually do move a fair number of people through that corridor.
dougsf, constant standstill vs. almost constant standstill. My point stands; using BART as an example of what mass transit should be is missing the point of what good mass transit is like; more than commuter rail service.
dreamflying@48:
I think the city is planning that future streetcar extensions have center stops like the SLUT currently has on Fairview (in front of Fred Hutch). I used to bike commute down Eastlake daily, and I'm pretty sure that if the tracks were oriented to the center of the street, there'd be plenty of bike room away from the tracks.
I totally agree, though, that if they're thinking of side stops (like on Westlake), they're ruining the street for bikes.
#49 - That's true, it's not the Tube, or NYC subway or the Metro or any of the other examples of a citywide systems, but if the Seattle area had something similar to BART (BART boasts nearly 400,00 passengers per day - pretty impressive), it'd be a fantastic improvement. Even if it only served the Seattle-centric I-90 and 405 (or south end I-5) corridors, it'd take tens of thousands, or more, cars off the road daily.
Good luck, y'all.
Listen guys, I know we're the most overeducated city in the union, and so we all think we know what's best for everyone, but can we please stop bickering and build some goddamn trains already? Thanks.
You missed the best quote where Councilmember Drago said that she has given up on trying to get more bus service in Seattle.
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