It sounds so easy — just “lay down tracks.”

In a rare campaign trail partnership, City Council citywide Position 9 candidate John Roderick recently teamed up with citywide Position 8 candidate Alon Bassok to put forward a radical plan to build neighborhood streetcars across the city.

The candidates envision a series of overlapping streetcar lines built to move people within neighborhoods, the “connective tissue” between Sound Transit’s regional light rail stops. And they want to do it soon, starting within the next couple years.

“Sound Transit is an organization designed to move people out of Seattle at 5 PM and move people in at 8 AM,” Roderick said. “It doesn’t connect neighborhoods to one another.”

With no proposed routes or analysis on ridership trends to back up the plan, the three-page document leaves plenty of room for questions. What the plan does propose is building 100 miles of dedicated lane track in 10 years at roughly $10 million a mile. Funding would come through a property levy tax that Roderick and Bassok estimate would cost homeowners around $200 a year on average.

Many have already pointed out that the $10 million a mile price tag seems like an awfully lowball estimate. The First Hill Streetcar, for example, was budgeted to cost $67 million a mile. Roderick and Bassok say costs in the neighborhood rail system could be significantly cut by foregoing extra street/sidewalk work, fancy stations, and land grading. Still, an itemized budget (PDF) for the First Hill line shows the streetcars and track work alone were budgeted to cost roughly $20 million a mile.

Nevertheless, Roderick is adamant that the city needs to start taking a radically different approach to moving people around that doesn’t rely on single occupancy vehicles or a Sound Transit light rail plan that dates back to the early 1990s.

“Seattle was built on a network of trolleys, they weren’t added on after the fact. We have kind of a phantom limb syndrome.”

West Seattle, the Central District, Fremont, and Ballard are a few of the neighborhoods the candidates think would be obvious choices for neighborhood trolleys. Even with the First Hill Streetcar coming online this year, Roderick says there’s still room for more rail on Capitol Hill. He also pointed out that the 2.5 mile line was designed as a compromise to not building a light rail stop on First Hill, not connecting the neighborhood.

Simply expanding current Metro services won’t cut it, Roderick says, unless those busses are in separate lanes to quickly move through traffic. “Then you’re half way there to building (streetcars),” he said. Roderick argues that dedicated lane streetcars are also less expensive to maintain, don’t get stuck in traffic, and create a sense of permanence that leads to better in-fill development.

With the overlapping neighborhood streetcars in place, Roderick and Bassok say light rail and rapid ride bus routes could be focused on getting people across the city.

Neighborhood trolleys are not a new concept in Seattle, of course. Roderick is fond of saying that the current light rail plan is a 20th Century solution to a 21st Century problem. By the same token, neighborhood trolleys are 19th Century solution to moving around the city, but Roderick says it makes sense as more and more people want to ditch their cars.

Before the auto industry and tough economic times conspired to rip out Seattle’s once robust streetcar network, Roderick said his father used to ride a 15th Ave E trolley to get to the old Broadway High School (now Seattle Central College). The voices of those who supported and relied on the city’s first trolley system have all but faded from today’s transit debates, but signs of the past system remain.

“Seattle was built on a network of trolleys, they weren’t added on after the fact,” Roderick said. “We have kind of a phantom limb syndrome.”

Portland’s MAX and San Francisco’s Muni streetcars are two West Coast examples of how a more robust trolley network could operate. Berlin and Prauge (where the First Hill streetcars were manufactured) have even more impressive trolley networks.

Of course, there are a few political realities the two candidates will have to overcome before rolling out their plan, like making it through the August primary and winning the November election.

It’s likely that Roderick and Bassok are both underdogs in their perspective races (major public polling has yet to commence). Roderick is second in fundraising for Position 8, but is currently being dwarfed by City Council member Tim Burgess. And while Roderick made a strong showing in the 43rd District Democrats endorsement vote, opponent John Grant has lots of progressive support for his affordable housing proposals.

In the Position 9 race, Bassok looks like even more of a long shot with less name recognition that his alt-rock counterpart and even less money. Central District community activist Bill Bradburd and the mayor’s legal counsel Elena Gonzalez both have a level of campaign organizing that Bassok hasn’t matched.

Property levy fatigue is another consideration. The extension of the First Hill streetcar and bikeway to Roy may require a local tax to help fund the $25 million project. And in March Mayor Ed Murray laid out his $900 million Move Seattle levy to fund a roster of transportation projects being planned to make Seattle’s streets safer and more efficient by 2024. Bassok and Roderick say their plan is completely compatible with Move Seattle. Whether voters think so remains to be seen.