Designs are nearly complete for the Broadway extension to the First Hill Streetcar that will include a new stop at Harrison and a new terminus at Roy in 2017. The question remains how to fund it.
While some small business owners say it would be a nonstarter, the City of Seattle commissioned a study last year to explore how Capitol Hill property owners might foot part of the bill through a “local improvement district.”
On Tuesday, the City Council transportation committee authorized the City to accept a $4 million state grant to put towards construction of the two stops. Combined with a $10 million federal grant, that puts the Broadway Streetcar about $10 million short of its expected cost. A LID could make up the difference by having the City issue a bond to be repaid by property owners near the project. Assessments would be made based on property value and proximity to the stops.
Here’s how it works. First, the LID needs a boundary. In the case of the Broadway Streetcar, analysts from Valbridge Property Advisors recommended an area that extends two or three blocks on either side of Broadway from Prospect to Boren. Continue reading →
Tuesday night brought the first marquee event night for the First Hill Streetcar as its first day of fare service coincided with thousands of Seattle Sounders fans headed for CenturyLink field for CONCACAF Champions League tilt with Mexico City’s Club America.
While the test of public transit is probably best measured in the day in, day out improvements it can bring to commutes and errands, sporting events and the like can be a gateway drug of sorts that brings out the more casual public transit rider — and create a few public transit addicts.
Tuesday night’s service got off to a bit of an inauspicious start after a car crash briefly blocked the line on Broadway but things appeared to have gone smoothly from there on out.
SDOT officials, in the meantime, are guiding the streetcar in the dark. ORCA card data has a “30-day lag” and the wireless network that will eventually report rider totals to SDOT HQ “is not activated yet while we work out some network issues,” CHS is told.
“Manual ridership counts” from the First Hill route’s free promotional period, though, revealed an “estimated average weekday ridership” of approximately 3,000 per day.
Meanwhile, the Sounders tied 2-2 and will have their work cut out for them in the second leg of their quarterfinal match-up Wednesday, March 2 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The Mexicans, by the way, converted their streetcar lines to light rail in the late 1980s.
Capitol Hill’s light rail service begins in 25 days.
The First Hill Streetcar was celebrated Saturday with lion dancing, firecrackers, and an important announcement for the International District community. The celebration was the first of a series of community parties planned to mark the start of service on the much-delayed line connecting the Pioneer Square, the ID, First Hill, and Capitol Hill.
On the day, Mayor Ed Murray announced the neighborhood’s International Children’s Park will be renamed to honor Donnie Chin, a community leader murdered last summer.
The celebration came after weeks of free promotional service on the 2.5-mile line that is hoped to carry around 3,000 riders a day. A timeline of CHS coverage of the project from inception to launch is below. CHS visited the 10 stations along the route last week. Tuesday, the line begins its first fare service with adults paying $2.25 as the streetcar’s honor system kicks in for the first time. Riders will need to buy tickets or tap their ORCA cards before boarding. Paid service will bring the true test of the line’s utility and whether it can overcome the handicap of sharing the street with vehicular traffic.
Capitol Hill’s First Hill Streetcar party, by the way, will come in May in conjunction with the neighborhood’s monthly art walk. There will also be more free ride days for special events including July’s Capitol Hill Block Party.
Saturday, the First Hill Streetcar will get its lion dance. Rushed to the starting line after showing up more than a year late, the 2.5-mile line connecting Pioneer Square, the International District, First Hill, and Capitol Hill began its service in January with free rides and zero ribbon cutting.
That will change Saturday when the $133 million Sound Transit-financed, SDOT-created, and Metro-operated finally gets a party. It has been nearly four years since construction for the line began on Broadway.
Below is a look at what we found at the First Hill Streetcar’s ten stops during a day riding this week. This is what we saw but we’ll depend on you to tell us anything we should explore on our next ride. Is this your stop?
After one final weekend and a Monday Presidents Day holiday without charging, the system’s honor system kicks in for the first time Tuesday when riders will need to buy tickets or tap their ORCA cards before boarding. Paid service will bring the true test of the line’s true utility and whether it can overcome the handicap of sharing the street with vehicular traffic. Perhaps these ten stations will be draw enough to make it work.
Officials say progress on a $75 million federal grant for a planned 1st Ave streetcar won’t necessarily affect the schedule for a possible 2017 start of construction for a two-stop Broadway extension to the recently opened First Hill route.
Tuesday, Seattle Department of Transportation officials said that the White House’s proposed $4.1 trillion budget — the last for President Barack Obama — includes 0.00182926829% for Seattle’s planned Center City Connector streetcar route envisioned as linking the First Hill Streetcar with the South Lake Union line by 2019. In total, SDOT says 25,000 riders per day could use the system — though few would find it useful to complete the Broadway to Westlake circuit via Occidental Square.
According to SDOT, the recommendation is only a first step toward a final grant agreement, which can only be completed after Congress approves the budget, “so we don’t expect the grant agreement before late 2016/early 2017.” Construction of the 1st Ave line would begin in 2017 and operations would mostly likely begin in 2019, a SDOT spokesperson said. Continue reading →
75 years — and some major testing delays — later, streetcars returned to Capitol Hill in January. The launch was a rush job with little ceremony. But officials say the 2.5-mile, 10-stop route connecting Pioneer Square, the International District, First Hill, and Capitol Hill will get its celebration February 13th. The celebration will bring to an end the free ride for the route which has enjoyed more riders than expected thanks to its no-fare introductory period.
Starting Monday, February 15th Tuesday, February 16th riders will need to purchase $2.25 adult fare at station platforms using an ORCA card or ticket machines. 3,000 riders are expected to use the streetcar every day — though many have been critical of the delays the FHSC sometimes encounters as it travels in the traffic lane, sharing space with automobiles, buses, and the occasional, extremely poorly parked car or truck.
As Capitol Hill piles on the transit projects in 2016, some business owners want the City to pump the brakes on an expansion to the First Hill Streetcar on Broadway.
Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce director Sierra Hansen says some of the organization’s members are less than thrilled about the prospect of more street construction and a proposed tax on businesses to help pay for the two stop addition.
“People were really excited two years ago… but I think the (First Hill Streetcar) delay has made people nervous,” she said. “I think the emphasis has focused away from expanding the lines and more on connecting the lines.”
The First Hill Streetcar line finally opened last Saturday, returning streetcar service to Broadway for the first time in 75 years — but only after more than a year of delay on the project.
The Broadway Streetcar calls for adding two streetcar stops on Broadway — one at Harrison and a new terminus at Roy — that would extend the First Hill Streetcar route and accompanying Broadway Bikeway by a half mile starting in 2017. The new stops are estimated to serve 1,000 riders per day by 2030.
As the project enters its final design phase with construction slated to start as early as the end of this year, funding remains a question mark. So far, SDOT has secured $10 million in federal funding and $4 million in state grants toward construction, putting the project roughly $10 million short. Continue reading →
There were no ribbons to cut or long speeches when the First Hill Streetcar shoved off from Pioneer Square for its inaugural passenger journey to Capitol Hill Saturday, but the rain-soaked launch delivered where it counts: regular service started without any major hiccups. Demand on the sunny Sunday that followed was large enough that officials pressed an extra car into service to deal with the crunch.
Speaking inside a crammed train car at the Occidental Square stop Saturday, Mayor Ed Murray distanced himself from the FHSC project’s many delays but said he was excited to take part in the first trip to his home neighborhood on Capitol Hill.
Across the street from the soon to open light rail station, Saturday’s start of service (CHS Coverage!) for the First Hill Streetcar marked a decade of work to get the line operational. In January 2006, the Sound Transit board authorized staff to begin planning for a possible new streetcar line after it had taken a First Hill light rail stop off the table because of the risk and expense it determined would be involved in creating the station.
Driver Tom did the honors Saturday for the first departure from Broadway and Denny
CHS historian Robert Ketcherside pledged to bring us regular editions of Re:Takes featuring the rich transit history of the neighborhood until the First Hill Streetcar began service. Robert, you may now rest.
Below, we’ve assembled Ketcherside’s recent editions as well as a few streetcar-focused stories from the Re:Take archives. Happy streetcar!
Blood, snow, and Madison streetcars: Recently, we were surprised again with snowflakes, one or two at a time trying their hardest to stick on the wet pavement. Every so often, though, Seattle gets a good snow. Look at those mounds in this old photo, which came undated from the State Archives. It must have been 1916. I’ve been dating these photos “circa 1913″ that I copied a few years ago. But there was only one snow event from that period that resembled this, two feet over a 24-hour period at the start of February. More…
When will the 27,500-day streetcar service delay end?: Well, is that man above in 1913 worried about driving his horses into the back of the number 49 bus? No, he is staring back at you, right through a rip in the fabric of space-time, right into your soul, and the horses have ceased to exist to him. And so it is with me. I will blindly whip this wagon right into the back of a pastel, cherry-blossom adorned streetcar in the public interest of a shared understanding of our streetcar past.More…
Electric cars to Capitol Hill, 1901: We’re looking at a legit Capitol Hill streetcar: the destination placard actually says Capitol Hill on it. This line to James Moore’s new neighborhood opened on November 17, 1901. There was service on Broadway a decade earlier, but Capitol Hill didn’t exist yet and it was one of many independently operated routes in the city. In 1899 and 1900 Seattle Electric Company took control of almost every line, and the Capitol Hill line became one of their first newly constructed streetcars.More…
The very first Broadway streetcar: If you’re well schooled on Capitol Hill history, you know these origin stories: David Denny began selling and leasing John Nagle‘s property along Broadway in 1880, and James Moore developed the Capitol Hill area near Volunteer Park after 1900. We’re going to talk about the period in between, a piece of early streetcar history that has not been chronicled.More…
UPDATE 1:35 PM: A bright yellow streetcar on the grayest of Seattle days was filled with around 60 riders and a driver named Tom for the first departure of the First Hill Streetcar from the Broadway/Denny stop Saturday morning.
With a “clang clang” and a round of applause, the streetcar departed just after 11:20 AM after getting the go ahead from operations that the train carrying Mayor Ed Murray and a huddle of dignitaries and community representatives had departed from Pioneer Square on the other end of the 2.5-mile route. On a day when the launch of the new $138 million streetcar line had already been downplayed by Seattle Department of Transportation officials, Murray also distanced himself from the brightly painted set of six shiny, new, Czech-designed cars. The mayor said he inherited a project that was delayed but was now happy the line was running.
Mayor Murray said he inherited a project that was delayed, but happy the FHSC is now running pic.twitter.com/GRtbS0aSIj
On the Broadway end of things, there was a little more enthusiasm. Some riders said they thought they would use the new line to visit the International District to shop at Uwajimaya or go out to eat in Pioneer Square. Some said they doubted they’d ever ride again except when tourists are in town to visit. A few riders said the line represented a more solid, perhaps more dependable kind of transit that they could be more confident in trusting to show up with regularity and provide a comfortable ride.
But it will be a slow ride. Even in light, Saturday morning traffic and with rather quick boarding and exits at the 10 stops along the line, it took nearly 25 minutes to travel from Broadway and Denny to Occidental Square. With the streetcar sharing lanes with with vehicular traffic and on a route that comes sometimes perilously close to cars parked on the street near the tracks, expect slower times when the line is needed most during rush hours.
Nobody but the media photographers trying to capture a small moment in Seattle history really seemed to be in a rush for Saturday’s first rides, however. Most riders were out to see the new streetcars and enjoy a free ride. The $2.25 fare will remain waived through a few weeks while the system ramps up. SDOT director Scott Kubly, who was part of the first ride out of Pioneer Square, is promising a larger celebration complete with lion dancers and a ribbon cutting when the line is ready for a “grand opening” in a few weeks.
The six streetcars travel the 2.5-mile line’s 10 stops every 10 to 15 minutes from 5 AM to 1 AMMonday through Saturday, and Sundays from 10 AM to 8 PM. The streetcar travels in the traffic lane sharing space with automobiles and buses. Most left turns along the route have been eliminated and signals are now coordinated to help keep the streetcar moving. From Pioneer Square to Broadway, the streetcar will operate with power from a single overhead wire. Hybrid batteries will provide power generated through “regenerative braking” on the mostly downhill return trip. 3,000 riders are expected to use the First Hill line every day with fares set by Sound Transit. The standard adult fare is $2.25. After the free period, riders without ORCA cards will be able to purchase tickets at fare box machines located on station platforms. You can learn more at seattlestreetcar.org.
Designs are nearly complete for the Broadway extension to the First Hill Streetcar that will include a new stop at Harrison and a new terminus at Roy in 2017. The question remains how to fund it.
