With all the hubub regarding streetcars returning to Capitol Hill — you can find the latest ‘hubub’ right here — here’s a look back to the last century to see what streetcars and their tracks looked like the first time around. The photo below is of Broadway looking North in 1934. As Rob Ketcherside points out in the notes to his 2009 shot of Broadway (Rob asked us to remove the photo and we respect his and everyone’s copyright – so, removed), it looks as if Broadway was indeed easily able to accommodate a streetcar. There you go, Boren backers — where’s your Seattle Muni Archive support, hmm? By the way, CHS will be talking with Seattle Department of Transportation planners this week about status of the effort to finalize a route for our new streetcar line. Stay tuned.
Seattle had a huge street car network until the 30s, when the city started dismantling them. You could take a street car all the way to Everett, according to my grandfather. Once they got moving they were scary beasts, swaying from side to side. Buses were more stable and safer. Most of the streetcars required passengers to walk into the street to get on. Kind of the opposite of how buses are now compared to streetcars.
One of the great transportation debacles of the last 70 years is how General Motors using millions of lobby clout $$$$ and other tactics convinced American cities to junk street cars and go diesel bus.
God, what a mistake … it is a sordid story. Of course GM sold the buses that replaced thousands of streetcars all over the nation.
Euro cities by and large kept the tracks and to this day they function just fine, with improved cars.
Seattle was not alone in going along with this bizarre junking of good trasportation systems. There are books on this topic.
damn those are some serious power lines. And what is that, a bell tower about a block down on the right?
There is no reason why we can’t have a streetcar going down Broadway again. And then down 12th too!
That’s the Pilgrims Church Bell Tower. Which means the business with the awning would be where Broadway Grill is now.
many of the more expensive streetcar lines were actually paid for/built by developers: you wanted people to buy homes in Leschi, you built a street car linking the real city to the “burbs” out east of 30th.
Too bad Joule and Brix didn’t pony up for some streetcar fundage. ;)