As the city works to improve north-south transit mobility and link the First Hill and South Lake Union streetcars through downtown with the Center City Connector, the public is invited to join the discussion.
On Wednesday, join Mayor McGinn and city councilmembers at the first open house to discuss the City Center Connector Transit Study. Officials will be looking at different transit types, like rail and bus, and on what street service might run.
Join us at our first Open House!
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Seattle City Hall, Bertha Knight Landes Room
600 4th Avenue, Seattle 98104
- We’ve reported on the streetcar construction along Broadway between Pike and Pine following the initial work in front of Seattle Central.
- Seattle received federal money to study the new streetcar line connecting the Pioneer Square end of the First Hill line to the SLUT.
- The city is on schedule to define alternatives for the project this month, with a final report due in Feb. 2014.
The outcome of the study will be the selection of a locally preferred alternative (LPA) that has stakeholder support and is backed by a viable financial and implementation plan. This will position the city well for future funding opportunities that will help us design a build a project
You can sign up for email construction bulletins and get more information about the ongoing project at seattlestreetcar.org/firsthill.htm.
Sounds like an excellent use for 3rd Ave. Build it.
I was thinking 5th, or maybe a 4th/5th couplet, but yeah, this needs to be built. Having two disconnected streetcar lines doesn’t do anybody good, especially when they don’t come anywhere close to touching the main financial/business district.
Hold on! There already is a mass transit connection between the International District/Pioneer Square and the South Lake Union streetcar….it’s the light rail line. Yes, it doesn’t have as many stops as a streetcar would have and people might have to walk a block or two to utilize the connection (horrors!), but it has already been built. Wouldn’t a streetcar just duplicate this service? And it would be very expensive to build.
I’m pro-streetcar in general, but they should be put in where they are needed, such as an extension of the First Hill line to the U-District.
Imagine that our streetcar line is built out, and there’s no service WITHIN downtown. That would be crazy, right?
First avenue!
Connecting the two streetcar lines is necessary to create a fluid, easy to understand network, rather than having three separate disconnected ones.
I don’t think many people are using the light rail to get around the central business district.
I get we need a connected streetcar network, but can’t we instead build to Ballard or West Seattle first? Seems like a better use of a planning cycle and federal money.
These street level rail systems are the most inefficient mode of public transportation currently in use. There is a reason (beyond the popularity of the car) that almost all streetcar systems in this country were dismantles in the first half of the 20th century. Think about what happens when there is a traffic jam or an accident in the tack lane, what does it do? The streetcar will just have to sit there and wait. Meanwhile a bus would simply go around the blocking incident and an elevated or lowered light rail wouldn’t even get slowed down and stay on schedule.
Instead of wasting money on installing rails in roads why not invest in better more fuel efficient buses? Why not create bus only lanes and allow the buses to turn traffic lights green?
If you want tourist friendly routes paint the buses different colors. Have the Blue buses serve one tourist friendly route and red buses serve another. Advertise this, make sure it’s easy to see that the blue bus goes to the U-District and the red bus goes to Ballard. There are so many different and better options than the streetcar. Why not create a new innovative solution instead of copying Portland?
It shouldn’t connect at a terminus, essentially making a long and winding rail from Aloha to Lake Union, but rather, the new downtown line should bisect them both, going from Costco, through downtown, belltown and terminating at the space needle. Hell, run it below the monorail. That’s just a tourist attraction anyway. cash only and no transfers…whatevs, monorail.
another thought…why not just paint lines on the road, buy some busses that look like san francisco trolleys, give them power over light switching and their own lane, and call them hybrid trolleys…or camouflage them to look like the SLUT cars.