Rico Quirindongo, the head of Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development, did not mince words when bringing up the Center City Connector, the long-deferred project to finally connect the city’s two disconnected streetcar lines. In early January, Quirindongo was briefing the Seattle Planning Commission about the City’s growth plan for the downtown area, a proposal that conspicuously leaves out the beleaguered project.

“There’s no money. It’s not in the transportation plan, the federal dollars that [Mayor Jenny] Durkan put on hold, those are not coming back to us, and the price to do it is twice as much as it was five years ago. It’s dead,” Quirindongo told the commission.

Though an off-the-cuff moment of candor, but Quirindongo is likely not wrong. The current cost estimate to build the 1.27-mile connection along First Avenue, uniting the First Hill and South Lake Union streetcars together into a unified system, has skyrocketed to at least $410 million. Even if the City were able to re-secure the $75 million recommended to the project by federal officials in 2016, no City dollars are earmarked for the project.

The Seattle City Council voting to remove the project from the city’s Capitol Improvement Program in 2024 appeared a final nail in the coffin. An effort to restart the project and once again win federal grants would have to contend with a Trump administration that is much less friendly to transit projects — especially in Blue states.

A price tag edging into the half-billion range is daunting for a local streetcar or rapid bus project, though it’s basically a rounding error for a Sound Transit light rail project. The latest estimates put West Seattle Link as a $7 billion project and Ballard Link at more than $20 billion.

Incoming Mayor Katie Wilson told the Seattle Times last year that advancing the First Avenue streetcar was unlikely to be prioritized if she were to take office, while at the same time criticizing prior administrations for stringing the project along. Various Seattle Mayors had embraced the project to varying degrees since it was first studied in 2012 under Mike McGinn. Most recently, Bruce Harrell embraced the idea in theory, rebranding it the “Cultural Connector,” but didn’t make any substantive moves to secure funding.

“I doubt that the Center City Connector will emerge as a funding priority in my first term. Either way, we owe voters a clear explanation, and a commitment to never again let projects like this stagnate for so long,” Wilson told columnist Jon Talton last fall.

Bridging the network through downtown was expected to significantly increase ridership on the whole system, and the lack of that connection clouds the future of the two existing lines, which were built for different purposes without a long-range vision for the decades ahead.

This Friday, the First Hill line turns 10 years old, a piece of transit infrastructure that has matured into a workhorse of the city’s transportation network. As detailed recently by the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, the 10-station line between Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill has nearly surpassed its pre-pandemic ridership numbers, becoming more than twice as efficient as the overall King County Metro bus network at moving people per service hour.

The First Hill line’s success stands in stark contrast with the South Lake Union line, which opened in 2007 and is not expected to return to its very modest 2019 ridership levels until sometime in the 2030s, if ever. At just 1.3 miles long, South Lake Union line is too short to be useful to many transit riders, while the First Hill line is nearly twice as long.

While more than 1.2 million riders jumped on a First Hill Streetcar in 2024, the South Lake Union line saw less than 20% of that figure, and has been hovering around 200,000 annual riders since 2022 — lower usage numbers than many Metro bus routes. While the First Hill Streetcar has surpassed 4,000 daily riders, the South Lake Union is consistently living well below 1,000 daily rides.

Despite return-to-work policies prompting employees in South Lake Union to go back into the office, many of those workers are choosing other modes, including bus routes that didn’t exist when the streetcar first opened, like the C Line and the Route 40. Soon the J Line will provide another option a few blocks away on Fairview Avenue.

Across downtown, streetcars would not be scurrying up and down Jackson Street if not for Sound Transit, and its 2005 decision to skip a light rail station in First Hill on the way to North Seattle. Designing a tunnel that could serve First Hill and then jog back around to Broadway and John Street proved to be a technical feat that the agency couldn’t confidently accomplish, and so the streetcar became the neighborhood’s consolation prize. In addition to paying for the majority of the $135 million needed to build the line, Sound Transit agreed to pay $5 million per year for operations — but only through 2023.

The limited duration of that funding agreement means the City of Seattle is now primarily responsible for maintaining an asset that was intended to connect riders with light rail indefinitely. While King County Metro is responsible for funding core bus service in Seattle, the agency has never taken the same responsibility for funding streetcar operations, even as it serves as the operator through a contract agreement.

As costs to maintain the two lines have increased, past City leaders had to get creative about funding sources that could plug the gap between dedicated streetcar revenue (including fares) and what it actually costs to keep the system running. Recently, the Harrell administration turned to the 2020 Seattle Transit Measure to plug that gap, a voter-approved funding stream directing a 0.15% sales tax toward bus service and related investments.

Six years ago, the City subsidy going into the Seattle Streetcar network was $5.4 million, a number has gone up to $13.4 million this year, dollars that could be used elsewhere in the city’s transit system. The 2026 budget adopted last fall diverted funding from transit capital upgrades — spot improvements intended to improve passenger amenities or speed up buses — into the streetcar budget to account for expenses growing more rapidly than expected.

The Wilson administration will face a choice around the streetcar system within just a few months, as they assemble a proposal to renew the 2020 transit funding measure. Wilson herself is already signaling that service levels and transit reliability will be her primary focus, and an early executive order this month targeting improvements for the Route 8 on Denny Way cites the benefits of a “robust, reliable transit network.” Without an entirely new funding source, choosing to continue to subsidizing the streetcar system with transit measure funds will coming with an opportunity cost, limiting Wilson’s ability to invest in transit more broadly.

Another hurdle on the horizon: the South Lake Union streetcar will likely have to shut down for as long as eight years during construction on Sound Transit’s Ballard Link Extension to allow for construction of the station planned at Westlake Avenue and Denny Way. That looming infrastructure project, which Wilson will put her stamp on as she joins the Sound Transit board this month, will likely color the entire discussion around what to do about the South Lake Union line.

The First Hill Streetcar celebrates its birthday this week as a successful piece of the transit network, a line that has fulfilled its mission to connect riders in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods with light rail. But the storm clouds on the horizon for the Seattle Streetcar are getting harder to ignore.

The post Seattle Streetcar Faces Uncertain Future as Newest Line Turns Ten first appeared on The Urbanist.

The move will help to standardize the fleets within the two cities, giving Sound Transit just one type of streetcar to maintain in Tacoma and the larger Portland Streetcar system two types of cars rather than three.

“Our preventive maintenance schedule will be reduced to only one type vehicle, which doesn’t sound like much on the start of it, but it will be a major reduction and simplification of our vehicle maintenance program,” T Line Light Rail Director Robert Blackburn told the Sound Transit board’s rider experience committee last week. “Vehicle systems will also be one type of maintenance for our maintenance department to troubleshoot and repair operations and maintenance staff will only have one vehicle to be trained on, which will substantially reduce operator and maintenance training. Also safety and emergency procedures will be simplified down to one vehicle.”

On its face, the deal is a great opportunity for Sound Transit, which will be able to receive virtually brand new streetcars at a 30-40% discount, and offload aging cars that only have a few years of life left in them. Sound Transit will pay $6.6 million for each Brookville. In exchange Portland will pay $500,000 for each Skoda, deduct the cost of retrofitting the Skodas for the Portland Streetcar network from its overall payment from Sound Transit, and split transport costs. All told, Sound Transit is expecting to fork over $16.6 million in addition to its three Skoda cars.

But the issue at the heart of the deal appears to be a raft of problems that Portland has experienced getting the Brookville cars to operate reliably on their system, a fact that is being downplayed by both the City of Portland and Sound Transit. Those issues that seem to be driving the entire proposal, and make a deal that at first glance appears much more beneficial to Sound Transit more easily understood.

Portland initially received the three Brookville Liberty NXTs by piggybacking off of a 2017 Sound Transit order procuring vehicles for the planned Hilltop T Line extension, which more than doubled the length of Tacoma’s streetcar line when it opened in 2022. Since Tacoma’s vehicles were needed first, Portland’s first car didn’t arrive until spring of 2023.

The extra cars would have allowed Portland to return to 15-minute service on the Eastside portion of its network, but they weren’t ready for prime time. They entered a “burn in” phase — a set of final test runs before being able to carry riders — a year after they were delivered. However, Portland’s Brookvilles didn’t actually enter revenue service until March 2025, another year after burn-in testing.

Stephen Weber, the chair of the advocacy group Friends of Portland Streetcar and a former member of Portland’s now disbanded Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee, has called the Brookville purchase a “$12 million mistake.” He’s cataloged myriad issues that the new vehicles have experienced since first hitting the streets, including recurring problems deploying the ramp for passengers with disabilities, issues displaying correct signage, randomly pulsing lights, the car’s decorative trim around the windows falling off.

“To call Brookville a ‘nightmare’ would be a gross understatement, and I regret Brookville being the recommended manufacturer for the 030-series back when PBOT [Portland Bureau of Transportation] still had the Portland Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee,” Weber told The Urbanist.

Issues with the cars, including the mechanical problems that prevented them from entering service sooner, have been cataloged in meeting minutes recorded by Friends of Portland Streetcar, including some directly reported by Portland Streetcar executive director Dan Bower.

“While Brookville looked immensely promising in 2017, Portland was not delivered the train that was ordered in 2018. Instead, we were delivered a fleet that is widely loathed by operators and one that a replacement for is already being sought after,” Weber wrote in a blog post written this summer, before the deal with Sound Transit was announced.

Officials from both Sound Transit and the Portland Streetcar have pointed to the fact that the cars were initially designed to run in Tacoma, suggesting that issues with the Brookville cars won’t necessarily follow them from Oregon into Washington, and that the Sound Transit maintenance teams are much better equipped to handle issues that do come up.

“We’ve worked closely with Sound Transit throughout the procurement of the Brookville vehicles, since we ordered as an option on their contract. In that process the streetcars were engineered for Tacoma’s system, which doesn’t necessarily present problems using them in Portland, but they’re definitely more optimally suited to Tacoma,” Andrew Plambeck, public affairs manager for the Portland Streetcar, told The Urbanist.

At the same time, Plambeck downplayed Portland’s long road to getting the Brookvilles to work.

“We’ve had minor issues implementing a new vehicle type on our system, but no more than you’d expect with any new vehicle type. Just things requiring a new or different preventive maintenance plan, etc.,” Plambeck said.

“Our vehicle engineering group has evaluated the Portland Brookville vehicles for us over a couple trips to Portland,” Sound Transit spokesperson David Jackson told The Urbanist. “Their engineers and ours are developing a scope of work to put out for a contract to perform the work. Also, the Portland purchased their Brookville vehicles using our vehicle contract options we had in the Hilltop extension. So, the vehicles were built using ST vehicle specifications with minor changes for the Portland Streetcar alignment.”

Despite all of the issues Portland has experienced, Weber doesn’t necessarily think Sound Transit will fare the same.

“While Tacoma will be getting vehicles that are not service proven, I do think they have the better resources to make them work, and they will no longer need to carry spare parts for just three aging vehicles,” Weber told The Urbanist, noting that the scarce market for streetcar procurement in the U.S. is one of the main reasons agencies would be reluctant to go on the record about problems. The scarce market also makes alternatives to the car swap much more costly.

“Considering that Brookville is the only option I am aware of in the U.S. for if you have a system that isn’t built to accommodate a longer vehicle offering from CAF and their Urbos rolling stock, I think you’re going to have a difficult time finding an agency willing to go on record detailing issues with Brookville,” Weber said.

While the purchase agreement was already approved by a unanimous vote of the Sound Transit board’s rider experience committee last week, the budget amendment enabling the deal to go through still needs to be approved by the full board on December 18.

The post Sound Transit Brokers Streetcar Swap Between Portland and Tacoma first appeared on The Urbanist.

Named for a large office building formerly home to the headquarters of the Montgomery and Ward Co. mail order firm, Montgomery Park also includes a large vacant site that used to be an ESCO steel foundry. The area bordering other similar warehouse districts like Slab Town and the Peal District that transformed from industrial to urban mixed issues. Montgomery Park could also serve as a gateway to Portland’s largest green space, Forest Park, and its many hiking trails. Portland is certainly taking a different approach to transit expansion as Seattle’s more light rail and megaproject-focused approach just to the north.

The post Sunday Video: Portland’s Streetcar Extension Hopes to Transform Montgomery Park first appeared on The Urbanist.

Currently, buses and streetcar vehicles heading northbound on Westlake Avenue have access to a curbside business access and transit (BAT) lane giving them priority over other through traffic. But with right turns onto Denny Way allowed from Westlake, that BAT lane often fills up with motorists trying to turn onto Denny, which is often gridlocked. This is particularly harmful for the reliability of the South Lake Union Streetcar, which can’t change lanes to get around turning traffic. But a fix is on the way.

Later this summer, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) intends to make the curbside lane of Westlake Avenue in this block transit-only, by prohibiting right turns onto Denny Way. The two northbound lanes will be separated by a low curb preventing drivers from entering the bus lane at the last minute, mirroring similar interventions separating the bus lane on Westlake Avenue N a few blocks north.

If implemented well and enforced — a big caveat — the change will benefit hundreds of transit vehicles per day across the streetcar, RapidRide C, and Route 40 buses that pass through this block. The reconfiguration will also be a significant boon to pedestrians crossing the intersection, who currently have to wait for left-turning vehicles and then right-turning vehicles before getting a “WALK” signal, only to have those vehicles block the crosswalk during times of peak congestion. Transit riders and people walking and rolling across the intersection alike will get prioritized with this change.

With right turns banned at Denny, signage will be needed to alert eastbound drivers of the need to turn right at Lenora Street. Otherwise, motorists may need to take a circuitous route through South Lake Union to reach the eastbound Denny Way lanes. Those signage improvements will be key to getting this adjustment implemented well.

This is a move that SDOT considered nearly a decade ago when it implemented transit improvements on Westlake, including those BAT lanes. Data from 2016 showed around 500 pedestrians were crossing Denny Way at this spot every hour during rush hour — a number that’s almost certainly much higher now — but a ban on right turns was discarded in favor of a dedicated right-turn signal, prioritizing vehicle movement over pedestrian safety and transit mobility.

It’s not exactly clear what prompted SDOT to reassess its 2015 proposal, but decreasing bus reliability is a growing problem. The share of King County Metro buses that aren’t on time is at its highest level in at least five years, pointing to the need for more interventions like this across the city. This upgrade will combine with improvements underway to the Route 40 through Westlake, Fremont, and Ballard to keep buses moving — helping nearly 9,000 riders per day who use that route.

These transit lane adjustments were announced as part of SDOT’s Denny Way repaving project, which recently wrapped up most of its major construction work. That project has prompted criticism for including minimal changes to Denny’s street layout, apart from a few minor pedestrian upgrades and bus stop readjustments. Despite prodding from within SDOT’s more progressive ranks to consider turning Denny Way “into something more that fits in with our big picture for Vision Zero,” the department’s traffic operations division vetoed consideration of more robust changes, including more bus-only lanes for the infamously delayed Route 8.

Transit advocates aren’t letting that issue fall to the wayside, however. The Fix the L8 campaign — an offshoot of Central Seattle Greenways — employed unique measures to get the issue of Route 8 improvements onto the radar of city leaders. Last month, the group hosted a “Race the L8” event that asked participants to find the most absurd ways to walk up Denny Way that would be faster than taking the bus during a busy evening rush hour. Hundreds showed up, juggling and balancing soda cans on their heads and leapfrogging one another up the steep Denny hill, still beating the perpetually delayed bus.

That high-profile event clearly inspired another one just like it in New York City, which mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani participated in. Seattle’s event, meanwhile, brought out progressive candidates like Katie Wilson and Dionne Foster, who went on to perform incredibly well against their incumbent opponents in the city’s August primary.

While those badly needed Route 8 upgrades remain more elusive, the spot improvement for northbound buses at Westlake Avenue is way overdue, and is poised to benefit thousands of transit riders and pedestrians every single day.

The post SDOT To Unsnarl Westlake Avenue Transit Pinch Point first appeared on The Urbanist.

Many Seattleites may not know that prior to 2011, buses ran up and down First Avenue, connecting Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market and Belltown before heading off to other neighborhoods. Route 21 (which went to Arbor Heights), the 56 (Admiral), and the old 15 and 18 (to Ballard) were among the buses that ran on First instead of Third Avenue. This arrangement spread service more evenly across downtown and provided riders with more options.

It was the start of demolition work on the Alaskan Way Viaduct that prompted King County Metro to consolidate transit service on Third, in an attempt to maintain travel times for buses ahead of expected traffic congestion. A lone Metro route — the 99 — was left on First, but ultimately moved off the street in 2017, before being fully eliminated the next year.

Since then, King County has looked at what it would take to restore transit service to areas of Belltown and the waterfront that have been left without, but most of that work has been happening on paper, with little impetus to move forward. The city’s Downtown Activation Plan has treated ways to improve transit service as an afterthought.

Nearly a decade-and-a-half later, a downtown tourist has no way to get from Pike Place to Pioneer Square without backtracking to Third Avenue, and making the trip in reverse often involves walking up a large hill. The connections are anything but intuitive and simple, pushing visitors to private mobility options.

The Center City Connector streetcar extension was supposed to be the solution to this problem, adding both redundancy and capacity while finally bridging the city’s broken streetcar network. But that project is now in a deep freeze, with the Harrell Administration still technically on record in support but the Seattle Council pulling any references to the project from the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). A new path forward is needed.

Streetcar opponents have long argued that bus service would be a better alternative to building the Center City Connector, a fact that ignores many of the long-established benefits of the proposed line. Those arguments have largely appeared secondary to a desire not to see street space reallocated along First, particularly around Pike Place Market. This is actually not an either-or, and serving First Avenue with buses now would actually bolster the case to increase capacity and dedicated right-of-way with the fully-designed upgrade down the road, even as it’s far from clear that the political will exists to push forward right now.

The opening of Metro’s RapidRide G Line last year did bring east-west service to First Avenue, a big step in improving connectivity to destinations like Colman Dock. But frequent G Line service at Madison Street also highlights the fact that there are no other connections on the street, dropping riders off to make the last part of their trip on their own in most cases — with the long-planned streetcar transfer point abandoned.

There are new challenges to overcome in returning transit to First that didn’t exist a few decades ago. A popular street plaza now sits underneath trolleybus wire along Pike Street east of First, blocking a potential pathway. Streets in Pioneer Square have additional load restrictions thanks to deteriorating passageways underneath, with not enough city funding allocated for repairs. These are obstacles to overcome, and not reasons to shirk away from returning to serve the corridor.

The reasons that bus service was moved off First Avenue made sense at the time, but continuing to live in that reality would be missing a big opportunity for Downtown Seattle’s new era to be transit-focused, and to use all of the tools in the toolbox to improve downtown mobility. Entering this new transit-rich era on First will require careful collaboration across levels of government, but it would pay dividends for years to come.

The post Op-Ed: It’s Time to Bring Transit Back to Seattle’s First Avenue first appeared on The Urbanist.

The department is proposing to keep fares for ORCA Lift low-income riders and seniors (ages 65 and up) at $1.00. Kids under 18 and under would continue to ride for free, as they do on most transit services in Washington state, thanks to Climate Commitment Act funding.

Regular adult fares on the streetcar lines have been set at $2.25 since 2015. During that time operating costs have risen 52% from $9.1 million in 2015 to an estimated $13.9 million this year. Inflation was about 35% over that timespan. Prior to the 2015 fare change, regular adult fares on the streetcar had been $2.50, but SDOT reduced the rate to match the lowest regular adult fare on the Link light rail system at that time. 

Seattle’s streetcar system is facing increasing financial strain, exacerbated by the expiration of financial support from Sound Transit, which helped fund the First Hill streetcar line after abandoning plans for a light rail station in the neighborhood.

Some Seattle councilmembers, led by transportation chair Rob Saka, have pushed to shutter the South Lake Union line as a cost-cutting measure. However, Seattle proponents were able to cobble together five votes to keep the streetcar operating. Nevertheless, in the absence of a commitment to resurrect the shelved Center City Connector streetcar extension and link the two existing orphaned lines, the long-term outlook for the system is bleak.

The 33% fare increase to $3.00 would reduce the amount of operational subsidy that the streetcar will require from the City of Seattle. This may help keep the streetcar off the chopping block in future budget cycles — though there are no guarantees since it only marginally improves the financial picture without the ridership boost the Center City Connector extension was projected to bring.

Unlike King County Metro bus and vanpool services, which are funded primarily by County revenues, streetcar operational funding comes out of City coffers. Metro operates the streetcar lines on behalf of the City of Seattle, provided that the City pays up. 

SDOT’s proposal would align streetcar fares with key regional transit partners. Sound Transit charges $3.00 for regular adult fares on Link light rail and ST Express bus services, and King County Metro plans to increase regular adult bus fares to $3.00 in September. 

In 2019, the streetcar lines raised $1.8 million in fare revenue (equivalent to $2.3 million in today’s dollars) and in 2023 that number had fallen to $679,000 (equivalent to $706,000 in today’s dollars). SDOT estimates that fare revenue will top $872,000 this year, a far cry from pre-pandemic times. With the proposed fare change, the department is projecting an extra $100,000 to $200,000 in fare revenue going forward, based upon assumptions from 2023 data (fare revenue data from 2024 has not been finalized). However, extension of lower ORCA Lift fares and the restart of fare enforcement could affect those numbers.

Last Monday, Metro restarted fare enforcement on some bus routes as well as the streetcar lines. The agency expects fare enforcement to improve fare payment rates on those services. Metro estimates that over a third of riders are currently skipping out of fare payment on buses and trains, significantly impacting fare revenue across transit services. A 2023 report by SDOT suggests that fare evasion could be even higher on the streetcar system, with as many as 64% of riders failing to pay fares.

Prior to the pandemic and suspension of fare enforcement, Metro had collected over $167 million in fare revenue in 2019 (equivalent to over $200 million in today’s dollars) while the agency only collected $73 million in fare revenue during 2024. Fare enforcement could improve financing for transit service and operations, but ridership also remains down significantly from 2019. Metro’s ridership in spring 2024 was only 64% of 2019 levels.

Ridership on the streetcar lines is still down from pre-pandemic levels, too, but the South Lake Union line continues to struggle the most in the two-line system. At just 1.3 miles long, the South Lake Union line was never meant to be operated without extension over the long-term. (For the matter, the City promised stakeholders the 2.5-mile First Hill Streetcar would be extended through downtown, dangling the hope of boosted ridership to lessen the sting of construction impacts.)

In 2023, ridership on the South Lake Union line was still only half what it was in 2019 with 236,121 rides. Conversely, ridership on the First Hill line was at 86.4% of 2019 levels, with over 1.17 million rides. 

SDOT said its 2024 data remains incomplete, but preliminary data from Metro shows notable improvements in weekday ridership on the First Hill line, which appear to be continuing into early 2025 and edging toward eclipsing pre-pandemic levels. The picture for the South Lake Union line, however, is more complicated with sporadic ups and downs while remaining persistently below pre-pandemic levels and likely won’t be helped in 2024 data by the temporary shutdown last summer due to equipment issues. 

On top of this all, service levels and span of service on both streetcar lines remain somewhat reduced. Peak-hour frequencies are every 12 minutes and off-peak frequencies every 15 minutes, and last service ends around 9:00pm on the South Lake Union line and 10:30pm on the First Hill line on weekdays. Prior to the pandemic, frequencies were better on both lines and service ran later. That ultimately affects potential ridership levels and fare collection.

Barring completion of the Center City Connector extension, the South Lake Union line could be in for a prolonged ridership drought and vulnerable to decommissioning every budget season.

The post Fare Hike Proposal Would Increase Seattle Streetcar Rides to $3 first appeared on The Urbanist.

While failing to get their official plan to decommission the South Lake Union (SLU) Streetcar, the anti-streetcar contingent did succeed in a symbolic victory by getting the Council to take a step back when it comes to the Center City line, approving Kettle’s amendment. But the reprieve for the SLU line appears a hollow one since it ridership is anemic at around 500 average daily riders in 2024, and the plan was always to extend the 1.3-mile line to increase its utility.

Without the Center City project to close a key 1.2-mile gap in Seattle’s streetcar network, the SLU line will continue to struggle to attract riders. It will have to fight to safeguard its operating funds from councilmembers-turned-buzzards trying to pick its bones every budget season. Rather than being cured of its long-term ailments, the South Lake Union Streetcar will remain on hospice care, but clearly on death’s door awaiting the next crisis.

Completing the Center City Streetcar extension is the logical thing to do, especially for those wanting the SLU line to survive. While several councilmembers have wrung their hands about the cost of the project, it remains a prudent investment, practically a rounding error in the budget of a Sound Transit light rail line.

A double standard: West Seattle Link vs Center City tram

Without batting an eye, Seattle leaders opted to add about $700 million in estimated costs to the West Seattle Link light rail project by adding tunneling in Alaska Junction — apparently because they don’t like the way elevated rail would look. Overall the West Seattle Link’s expected budget has skyrocketed from $4 billion a few years ago to about $7 billion, due to inflation and routing decisions.

Such cavalier cost-increasing actions makes whining over a few hundred million dollars in costs for the Center City Streetcar look silly in comparison, and clearly a double standard. Inflation is hitting nearly every infrastructure project around. The Seattle Streetcar is fairly unique in being singled out for the chopping block, however.

A $410 million streetcar project does not look so pricey in the context of the Sound Transit board adding approximately $700 million to West Seattle Link’s tab just so West Seattleites won’t have to look at an elevated guideway, or deal with quite as much construction work on the surface. The elevated Fauntleroy option the tunnel alternative replaced is actually projected to attract higher ridership due to its more central location.

Center City Streetcar ridership boon

The First Avenue extension would vastly improve Seattle’s streetcar network, providing a major boon to ridership. With the extension, Seattle’s streetcar network could attract nearly as much ridership as the $7 billion West Seattle light rail project is predicted to attract.

“By SDOT’s own estimate, the proposed Culture Connector extension would attract 28,000 daily riders, making it more popular than the busiest bus line in the city,” the transit advocacy group Seattle Subway wrote in their letter-writing campaign seeking to save the streetcar.

While SLU Streetcar ridership is dwindling and low, the First Hill Streetcar has rebounded from the pandemic with some momentum. The 2.5 mile line was hovering around 4,000 daily riders for much of 2023. At 1.2 miles, the SLU line is too short to be very useful, a problem which extension into the heart of downtown and Pioneer Square solves.

The First Avenue extension is a serious transit project with real benefits, not the kind of frivolity that should be killed on a whim as a footnote to an already convoluted City budget by councilmembers scarcely up to speed on the implications. A connected five-mile streetcar network makes sense. Two disconnected shorter lines don’t — and they can only survive so long without the crucial missing link in the middle.

Third Avenue streetcar would offer far fewer benefits

Late-breaking ideas put forward by Councilmembers Kettle and Dan Strauss to reroute the Center City Streetcar on Third Avenue as some sort of urban makeover tool show how little they understand this project and what it means for transit riders and a fast-growing downtown searching for an economic boost.

The Center City Streetcar would added dedicated transit lanes on First Avenue, increasing transit speed and reliability while creating a more walkable street in the process. It would improve transit access on the waterfront side of Downtown, which has scant transit service and a steep hill up to the rest of downtown.

The steep grade to reach the Third Avenue bus mall can be daunting for people with disabilities, kids in tow, or heavy loads. The streetcar provides a way to transverse the hill and disabled Seattleites have noted level boarding and a smoother ride is a big plus, providing an accessible option that upgrades their mobility.

In contrast, a Third Avenue streetcar route would provide far fewer benefits, not creating a new way to navigate the steep hill separating the waterfront from the heart of downtown. It doesn’t expand how many Seattleites would live or work within a short walk of frequent transit, since it doubles down an already transit-rich corridor instead of pioneering a new one. A Third Avenue streetcar would get gummed up in bus traffic and fail to boost transit speed and reliability as much as dedicated First Avenue lanes.

Basic geometric questions appear unanswered. The Third Avenue route would would almost surely mean abandoning the existing First Hill Streetcar stop at Occidental and Jackson Street, since the turn for Third Avenue comes before this stop. In other words, Pioneer Square would lose its streetcar stop. It’s also not clear this back-of-napkin proposal has even answered the basic feasibility question of whether the grade up Third Avenue is too steep to accommodate streetcars.

Restoring Pike Place Market’s historic streetcar condition

Leaders from the Pike Place Market have come out hard against the streetcar project. There’s certainly an irony in its historic commission fighting the streetcar when streetcars ran down First Avenue when the market was founded in 1907. Apparently historic preservation is only good up to a point — typically the point it challenges car culture and parking convenience.

A few parking spaces are not going to make or break market vendors, but a streetcar extension projected to exponentially boost ridership passing right by the market would clearly be a draw, bringing in more patrons. It’s too bad Market leaders have been too short-sighted to recognize this long-term benefit.

Seattle needs to stop vacillating

Back before years of inflation and indecision when the project still cost around $200 million, the City had a $75 million federal grant lined up for the project. Later Seattle lined up a $7.3 million federal grant to update project plans, which the Seattle City Council decided to forfeit. Seattle is leaving money on the table with its vacillating, penny-wise, pound-foolish approach.

The argument for the streetcar is not that it’s most important project to improve mobility in Seattle. It’s not. But it is the kind of solid, beneficial project that competently-run cities should carry out as a matter of course. It should be routine rather than a decade-long debate. The failure to build rapid transit projects (and enough housing at all income levels around them) on anything approaching a reasonable timeline is part of why people lose faith in politicians and the cities they run.

Abandoning the Center City Streetcar is shrinking from leadership and imagining a dimmer future for Seattle. Why choose to sabotage our own infrastructure projects and chase harebrained schemes or directionless austerity when we have highly beneficial shovel-ready projects right before us?

The post Op-Ed: Abandoning Seattle’s First Avenue Streetcar Is Still Foolish first appeared on The Urbanist.

The South Lake Union (SLU) Streetcar has been in service since 2007 — Seattle’s first modern streetcar since the city dismantled its extensive historic streetcar network in 1941, replacing many streetcar routes with trackless trolleybuses.

Saka’s amendment requesting the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) develop a plan to “thoughtfully retire” the SLU streetcar was rejected on a 5-3 vote, with an abstention from outgoing Councilmember Tanya Woo. That was even after Saka introduced substitute language that seemed intended to make the idea more palatable to his colleagues. Put forward at the last minute, the full text is still not available on the city’s website.

However, Saka described the updated language as clarifying that service on the SLU streetcar would be maintained through the 2026 FIFA World Cup and in coordination with return-to-work policies at Amazon, which is returning to a full five-day workweek at its Downtown Seattle campus in early 2025. In the end, just Saka, Bob Kettle, and Cathy Moore supported the amendment.

Introduced just 24 hours before the final public hearing on the proposed city budget, Saka’s amendment nonetheless brought out transit advocates and downtown business interests who don’t want to see the streetcar decommissioned. In just a few days, an action alert put out by Seattle Subway garnered close to 1,000 signatures. Vulcan Real Estate, which had a large role in seeing the streetcar become reality, came out strongly against the proposal, along with the Downtown Seattle Association. Vulcan is a major property owner along the streetcar route.

With very low ridership and operating costs that continue to require direct city subsidy, the future of the South Lake Union Streetcar is still very much in doubt, and last week’s vote likely won’t be the end of the discussion. The consensus among transit advocates on the best way to increase ridership is to extend it and finally connect the SLU Streetcar with the First Hill Streetcar, providing more connectivity while at the same time increasing access to high demand amenities like Pike Place Market and the Seattle Art Museum.

That extension, the so-called Culture Connector line (previously called the Center City Connector), has been in limbo since former Mayor Jenny Durkan put it on hold by in 2018. First Avenue utility work was already underway at the time. Durkan ultimately affirmed support for the streetcar extension after a year of scrutinizing the plan, but made no moves to secure full funding, nor did her successor Bruce Harrell.

While stuck in limbo, expected costs have more the doubled; the project’s most recent estimate was $410 million dollars, according to a report issued earlier this year. In 2018, the City had put the cost around $200 million. Given Seattle’s budget crisis, the project is effectively on life support.

By a 7-1 vote, the Seattle City Council doubled down on opposition to the streetcar extension, approving a Kettle amendment that removes reference to the Culture Connector’s unsecured $410 million from the city’s Capitol Improvement Program (CIP). While a largely symbolic move, it does signal a lack of support for the fully-designed line. Maritza Rivera was the lone vote in opposition, with Tammy Morales abstaining.

A staff report notes an expectation that, if approved by council, the amendment would push the Harrell Administration “to resolve any outstanding grant obligations related to the project, propose the abandonment of existing capital appropriations for the project in separate legislation, and work towards removing the Culture Connector from the CIP.”

In other words, within the span of a few minutes, the Council voted to support the South Lake Union Streetcar and to oppose the most likely path toward a unified system that would ensure the streetcar’s long-term success and solvency. Instead, Kettle, Saka and budget chair Dan Strauss were interested in discussing a brand new concept for a streetcar on Third Avenue, a proposal that seemed to come out of thin air. Kettle first mentioned the idea for a Third Avenue streetcar earlier in the week.

“We need a rethinking on the core design assumptions, we need a rethinking of the options — perhaps Third Avenue… as you know, Third Avenue has only one way to go, and that’s up,” Kettle said. “Bottom line is that this is a zombie project, and sadly, to quote the quotable quote on this, the First Avenue streetcar is really no way to run a railroad.”

A substantial overhaul of Third Avenue has been a longtime priority of the Downtown Seattle Association and other downtown business groups. But a streetcar has never been part of any of the proposals put forward so far. And yet budget chair Dan Strauss said that was the deciding factor in his vote Friday.

“With that information that it is still on the table to put the train up Third Avenue, I will be supporting this motion today,” Strauss told his colleagues.

Routing an extension of the First Hill Streetcar on Jackson Street onto Third Avenue would almost certainly present major technical challenges, and involve abandoning the current streetcar stop serving Pioneer Square at Occidental Street. Construction would disrupt the region’s busiest bus artery. Then there’s the issue of the existing infrastructure for the Sound Transit light rail tunnel underneath Third, sure to present certain unique challenges. But ultimately, it’s just not clear why Third Avenue needs a streetcar if First Avenue does not.

Kettle’s primary arguments against the Culture Connector was that the project was extracting “opportunity costs” and would negatively impact motorists, particularly by restricting left turns on First Avenue.

“We could have already had a great, unique bus service along First Avenue, connecting Seattle Center and the stadiums, with Pioneer Square and the Pike Place Market, but we don’t, because the zombie project has basically took that out,” Kettle said. “Not to mention road improvements in Pioneer Square, which are important. And we just did a bunch as related to the Alaskan Way Project. And we had opportunities as work was being done into Pioneer Square and other parts along [with] the ways we’re trying to connect the waterfront better to downtown, to do some of this work. But it wasn’t done.”

Kettle’s speech includes some revisionist history. First Avenue has been absent of most Metro bus routes since 2011, before the idea of a streetcar there was being seriously considered, due to impending construction on elements of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project. With intermittent closures planned for streets along the waterfront, Metro didn’t want to have to keep moving buses from one street to another. And moving all buses onto Third Avenue brought ease of transfers, along with reliability benefits given full bus priority on the corridor.

Since then, there’s been little push to return buses to First Avenue, though Metro has been exploring ways to serve areas currently left out, particularly in the northern section of Belltown (where the streetcar would not run). The City has also contributed to the operation of a free waterfront shuttle during the summer months.

As far as street improvements in Pioneer Square, it’s unclear what upgrades Kettle thinks went unfunded beyond the $21 million overhaul of the east-west streets in the neighborhood currently underway right now. The construction of the Culture Connector would require a $51 million upgrade to the “areaways” in the neighborhood, the hollow passageways underneath the sidewalks that resulted when the street level was raised in the late 1900s. Those upgrades all likely need to happen at some point to withstand normal traffic, but the $1.55 billion transportation levy just approved by voters only includes $3 million for that work.

Saka, quoting the Seattle Bike Blog, called keeping the South Lake Union streetcar in place a “classic case of Seattle indecision.” But ultimately the votes Friday illustrate that the Council is doubling down on that indecision, ready to side with downtown business groups when it comes to the South Lake Union Streetcar but also seemingly ready to pursue unstudied options like a Third Avenue streetcar over plans that have been on the books for years. That indecision seems set to continue into the foreseeable future.

The post Council Affirms Support for SLU Streetcar, but Opposes Center City Extension first appeared on The Urbanist.

Another amendment sponsored by the same three councilmembers would also adjust the city’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) to remove the Center City streetcar along First Avenue, which had been long-planned to finally connect Seattle’s two disconnected lines. The maneuver would officially dash hopes of securing funding and reviving the stalled project, which was placed on hold by former Mayor Jenny Durkan in 2018.

The Harrell Administration expressed interest in pursuing the project, now dubbed the Cultural Connector, until a new cost estimate of $410 million was released early this year, and it has remained on ice. The ill-fated extension project would create a connected five-mile streetcar system, closing the 1.2 mile gap between the 1.3-mile South Lake Union Streetcar and the 2.5-mile First Hill Streetcar.

The lower-performing of the city’s two streetcar lines, the South Lake Union Streetcar has seen ridership has remained low even as workers have returned to the neighborhood following the Covid-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic, the line carried more than 500,000 riders per year, but since 2020 it has struggled to regain them.

In 2023, only around 175,000 trips were made on the line, with some daily ridership figures as low as a few hundred boardings. Contrast that with the First Hill Streetcar, which carried 1.27 million passengers in 2023, nearly returning to pre-pandemic ridership levels. At nearly twice the length of its SLU counterpart, the First Hill line connects more destinations as it runs between Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square.

Saka urged transit riders to look at the bright side of his “thoughtful” cut in a statement timed with a broader release of proposed budget amendments.

“As Transportation Committee Chair, I’m deeply concerned that residents aren’t getting what they paid for when it comes to the South Lake Union Streetcar. There are much more effective ways we could be investing our transit dollars and that’s why I’m proposing the executive take a serious look at alternatives with my amendment,” Saka said. “This isn’t about killing transit – it’s about ensuring our transportation dollars are wisely spent on expanded transit service in the area that people will actually use! At its core, this is a 1-for-1, transit-for-transit investment that would require a thoughtful transition of service.”  

The Downtown Seattle Association (DSA), a long-time supporter of the streetcar, pushed back on Saka’s proposal.

“We’re seeing more residents, workers and visitors in downtown and now is not the time to take existing mobility options off the table,” the DSA said in a statement. “With looming major transportation projects like Revive I-5 impacting our network’s capacity, we need to ensure the transit modes we already have downtown are functioning optimally, safely and a providing great experience.”

Partially funded with $25 million from a local-improvement district (LID) collected from nearby property owners, the $53 million South Lake Union (SLU) streetcar was broadly seen as a real-estate development tool intended to spur activity in a former warehouse district that was rapidly transitioning into a tech hub. Transit options in the area were fairly limited at the time, and the streetcar was conceived initially as one part of a network that would ultimately cover much of the city.

Since 2007, bus options in SLU have improved, including the extension of West Seattle’s RapidRide C Line along Westlake Avenue N in 2016. Though some sections of the streetcar’s route include dedicated lanes, most riders are headed to destinations beyond the streetcar’s reach and it regularly becomes stuck in traffic at key pinch points like the intersections with Denny Way and Mercer Street.

Operating the South Lake Union streetcar currently costs around $4.5 million dollars per year, with passenger fares only bringing in around $800,000 as of 2022, the most recent year for which financial figures are available. Amazon, the neighborhood’s largest employer, currently contributes around $250,000 per year for streetcar operations, after purchasing several streetcar vehicles as public benefit as it expanded its campus and took over public right-of-way. Along with some other grants and station sponsorships, King County Metro does provide some funding to maintain operations on the line, but the lion’s share of funding to keep the line moving comes from City of Seattle dollars — dollars which could be diverted to fund other transportation projects.

Since 2023, the Harrell Administration has been filling the budget gap on streetcar operations using Seattle Transit Measure funding, which was approved by voters to pay for additional transit service as well as transit improvements and expires in early 2027.

The future of South Lake Union streetcar does face a critical decision point soon as Sound Transit prepares to start construction on the Ballard Link Extension project toward the end of the decade. With a station set to be built at Westlake Avenue and Denny Way, streetcar operations would have to cease for the eight years of station construction, unless the City of Seattle constructs a length of track connecting around the closure, a length of around 2,000 feet. Due to space constraints at the First Hill Streetcar’s maintenance facility, this is likely the only way the city would be able to move forward with building the Cultural Connector.

Saka’s amendment directs SDOT to create a plan “to identify the administrative and legislative steps necessary to decommission and dispose of South Lake Union Streetcar assets, including the South Lake Union Streetcar maintenance base, trolley vehicles, tracks, and traction power infrastructure.” And it asks for a plan to purchase additional bus service around South Lake Union “as a means to transition from streetcar service to other transit alternatives.”

Prior to this week, there was little indication that Saka was considering a push to eliminate streetcar service in South Lake Union. During a brief presentation on the streetcar network earlier this year at the transportation committee, he did probe Central staff on the history of the line, the reasons for a significant difference in ridership between the two streetcar lines, and other options for transit in SLU.

If the amendment passes, a final report would be due to the council by September 15 of next year. As a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI), this amendment wouldn’t actually remove any funding for the streetcar. The proposal is set to be considered by the Council’s budget committee later this week, following a final public hearing on the proposed budget and all amendments Tuesday night at 5pm.

Update: This article was updated at 2:22pm Tuesday with the statement from the Downtown Seattle Association.

The post Rob Saka Pushes to Decommission the South Lake Union Streetcar first appeared on The Urbanist.

“King County Metro’s electrical vendor that supports streetcar operations identified worn-out control units that manage the high-voltage breakers at one substation in July,” Metro spokesperson Jeff Switzer said in a news release. “In response, the maintenance team began working to obtain highly specialized replacement parts which are not readily available in North America. Service was temporarily scaled back to reduce the power load on the remaining substation.”

Unfortunately, the remaining substation wasn’t able to hold out, even with the reduced schedule. The streetcar is owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and operated by King County Metro, but the agencies use an outside vendor to handle the electrical work on the line. None of the three have been able to ascertain the cause of the parts failure as of yet.

“We are working with our vendor to determine why the parts failed,” Switzer said. “Streetcar service will be suspended until further notice while repairs are being made. The exact repair timeline is still being determined, and it is currently expected to take several weeks to obtain and install parts for four control units and up to four high-voltage breakers. Metro and SDOT are working together to expedite the work to the extent possible to restore service as soon as possible.”

Metro has encouraged transit riders to use alternate bus service while the streetcar is offline. The RapidRide C Line, Route 40, and Route 70 also serve the Westlake Avenue corridor, usually at greater frequencies. The SLU streetcar runs from Westlake Square (adjacent to light rail and monorail service at Westlake Station) to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, cutting through Amazon’s corporate campus on the way.

• Route 40: Timetable and route map.
• Route 70: Timetable and route map.
• RapidRide C Line: Timetable and route map.

Ridership on the South Lake Union Streetcar is relatively anemic, as it carries just shy of 500 weekday rides, as of the latest June figures. The First Hill Streetcar carries about 3,600 average weekday passengers, making it a much more integral part of the transit network. It remains in operation as normal.

The SLU streetcar’s weak ridership is hardly a shock given its short length and more frequent bus service in the corridor. However, since its launch in 2007, the intent and promise had always been to extend the SLU line through Downtown along First Avenue, connecting the route with the First Hill Streetcar, which would also take advantage of the downtown extension.

However, Mayor Jenny Durkan pulled the plug on the funded and shovel-ready Center City project in 2018, citing concerns about alleged design errors and cost overruns. Since then, the project has been in limbo, with no subsequent council or mayor fulling abandoning the project, but not resurrecting it either via restored funding.

Mayor Bruce Harrell had voiced some measured support for the streetcar as a tool of downtown recovery and cultural connection, since the First Hill line runs through the Chinatown-International District. However, he ultimately opted against funding the project via his eight-year transportation levy proposal, which ended up at $1.55 billion after a few additions. Facing a quarter-billion-dollar budget deficit, Harrell said the streetcar project’s budget had ballooned too high in the intervening years — as it sat on a shelf facing the ravages of inflation. Bundled with utility upgrades, the latest estimate put the Center City streetcar’s cost at $410 million.

South Lake Union Streetcar service faces another hurdle on the horizon with an expected eight-year closure once Sound Transit begins construction on its second downtown light rail tunnel as part of the Ballard Link extension, which the agency hopes to open in 2039. The line will run down Westlake Avenue and put a station near the intersection with Denny Way. With Sound Transit still in a prolonged phase of draft environmental study, that project is still several years away from breaking ground.

Nonetheless, doubts are starting to mount as to whether the South Lake Union Streetcar will be operating by the time light rail work would necessitate a closure.

SDOT estimates the operating cost for the SLU line at $4.6 million this year, and a scheduled phaseout of Sound Transit funding for First Hill Streetcar operations will put strain on the Seattle Streetcar budget. It remains to be seen whether the Seattle City Council will continue to fund the less productive streetcar through a City budget crisis, with most councilmembers pledging to pursue major budget cuts rather than new revenue.

In fact, even before this unexpected weekslong electric outage that highlighted maintenance costs coming due for an aging line, The Urbanist had suggested that the SLU streetcar’s future was dim and its days numbered without the City committing to finally build the Center City extension. This temporary closure could either be impetus to pursue extension with renewed vigor or bow to the streetcar skeptics who have wanted to pull out the tracks since they were laid.

The post South Lake Union Streetcar Shuttered for Weeks Due to Electrical Breakdown first appeared on The Urbanist.