We’ll highlight them as some of the project’s more notable milestones come along but you might find the Seattle Streetcar Network’s weekly construction updates useful for your day-to-day survival living, working and playing on Capitol Hill. Below is this week’s update — expect constricted car, bus and bike traffic on Broadway and pedestrian detours in the area. Also, looky… exciting new manholes. Here is more on what to expect during this summer of First Hill Streetcar construction on Broadway. You can keep up to date on the bulletins at facebook.com/SeattleStreetcar or twitter.com/thestreetcar. Or you can just wait for us to holler about them from time to time.
I’m so happy to see them getting to work!
I figured we’d have six months of surveying and spray painting on things before any real work started.
I know there was at least one merchant at the farmers market with a sign up complaining about the construction but it didn’t seem to dampen business down there.
Whats the difference between a bus and a streetcar other than you can change the busess route? The streetcar is pretty much set in it’s tracks. How manny bus routes are ended because of this streetcar? Seems like a waste to me.
A streetcar is considered permanent. So it effects development and business where as bus routes can be canceled and changed. And people who won’t take the bus will sometimes take a train or streetcar. That’s the main difference.
I’m excited to see them get to work too! I can’t wait for the streetcar to start running.
Streetcar costs 40X as much to operate, requires a million dollars in infrastructure, cannot be rerouted, creates way more traffic. Why are we building streetcars? I have no idea
On the up side for the streetcars. They are kind of romantic ;)
Many people who won’t take trains will take streetcars. I have no idea why, but there you have it.
Why build an imperfect streetcar line when it obviously so much more better to run buses? Because the world is corporeal and not an abstraction. People behave the way people behave. If operated correctly people and businesses will trust and rely on the streetcar (which must be coming along this route and must be coming soon) in their planning and actions. I’m looking forward to a reliable back and forth on Broadway.
You got any facts there david or are you just pulling numbers from the air? Maybe you have no idea because you’re not trying hard enough (or at all)
Operating expenses for buses are typically higher than buses (think longevity of trams vs coaches—streetcars have usable lifespans of 40 years+ vs buses up to 10yrs; trains have higher passenger capacities which can mean higher passenger to driver ratios resulting in reduced labor costs)
The upfront costs for streetcars is certainly more expensive than buses, but the initial costs of streetcars typically include other improvements to the streetscape (think cycle track, street trees and plantings, etc) that everyone gets to enjoy. But why would we want to do any of that?