There isn’t much left to say about the streetcar plan. Thursday’s special meeting of the City Council’s transportation committee at First Hill’s Seattle First Baptist Church was positioned by city officials as a final opportunity for the community to provide public feedback on the planned streetcar line that will connect the International District to Capitol Hill via First Hill. Only eight people spoke, six of them spoke in favor of the plan. The meeting was over in under 40 minutes.
“There’s a lot of support for seeing this go forward,” Council member Nick Licata said, summing up the mostly quiet hearing.
Nothing wrong with quiet. The meeting, if nothing else, was another formality in the process to have a $132 million streetcar paid for by Sound Transit and built by the Seattle Department of Transportation running on Broadway by 2013. The plan can now move forward to a vote. Transportation committee head Council member Tom Rasmussen said the committee will take up the resolution to approve the plan in its next session on April 27. Assuming it passes out of committee, the legislation will move to the full Council for a vote on May 3.
Once that happens, there will be plenty more to talk about including how the Council and SDOT will finalize elements of the streetcar plan such as locations for storage and maintenance facilities for the new line.
While the hearing was a mostly quiet affair, there were a couple of new elements brought to the podium during the public comment session. Seattle resident Peter Sherwin was one of the two speakers against the streetcar plan. He believes a “rubber-tired” streetcar system would be a cheaper, better solution for the city. You can read more about these types of systems in this Wikipedia article.
James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle and co-founder of the Street Car Alliance, voiced his support for the streetcar plan but also said the Council should be working harder to make sure the city has more “shovel ready” projects planned. “I’m here to encourage the Council to consider formal support for other small extensions to the streetcar network, such as a 10-block extension to Jackson in the Central District, extension of the South Lake Union line to Eastlake and to Pike Place Market,” Kelly said. He also wins points for asking the Council to get on board the “The Love Train” and support the extension to 23rd and Jackson.
The hearing was also a chance for representatives from the Community Council’s Complete Streetcar Campaign to have the microphone one more time in what has been a largely successful effort to push forward an agenda of broadening the streetcar planning process to include pedestrian and bike amenities and an extension of the line to north Broadway. Earlier this week, CHS reported that the City Council’s resolution for the streetcar plan included a section calling for budget to be made available to study the campaign’s elements. CHS voted this week to endorse the Complete Streetcar Campaign.
Meanwhile, the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce was a more active participant Thursday night with two representatives making statements of support for the streetcar and the Complete Streetcar Campaign’s initiatives. “There’s 30,000 square feet of new space in the 500 block alone of Broadway looking for tenants,” said Allan Jones of Russell Jones Real Estate. “And the streetcar would be a wonderful sales tool to encourage strong retailers who want to come into the district to help us revitalize that corridor.”
First of all, what’s the point of the “rubber-tired” streetcars? Sounds suspiciously like a bus to me.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for their supportive comments. I particularly like James Kelly’s comments that the city should be supporting the rest of the streetcar network. The same federal grants that could help us build the North Broadway extension could be used to fund the Jackson extension from 14th to 23rd, serving the heart of the Central District. They just have to do the design. Hopefully the City Council will listen to groups like Streets For All Seattle and establish a good funding source for stuff like this.
The point is more bang for the buck. Why is a steel track such a big deal?
Innovation seems worth taking a look at – it’s just the wheels that differ, not a bus at all.
And they use a trolley energy system, so can using existing trolley overhead when possible … another major cost saving.
Check out system operational in Leeds UK …. not just theory, exists on the ground with riders.
The article referenced on rubber-tired streetcars says they run on tracks that exclude all other traffic. I don’t think that will work on Broadway.
Sounds like rubber-tired to reduce noise… I’m all for expansion of the streetcar network. It will help to bridge neighborhoods in a way that buses cannot.
Mike, please provide proof that such a system exists and has been proven to work. Leeds has trolleybuses just like Seattle has, as far as I can tell from some quick research. The system Peter Sherwin talked about is a prototype and does not actually exist–from what I heard he was relying on a photoshopped picture to prove his point. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I didn’t speak against the streetcar, but rather suggested the rubber tired version should be considered. These vehicles with low floor (level entry), flat floor (no axle bump), modern interiors offer all the advantages of streetcars at about 1/5 the cost (according to SDOT).
http://www.tbus.org.uk/models.htm is a good site to check out these new vehicles and their interiors. The Wright model operates as a hybrid but show what a rubber-tired streetcar could be.
The system could be much longer, provide more frequency w/o new dollars.
They also work great with bikes.
Peter Sherwin