Everyone one of those red lines was a streetcar… Wow. These days, there are just six streetcar/light rail lines and BART. Still better than we have…
H/T to ever-awesome Overhead Wire
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I knew from pictures on the local stores near my house that streetcars ran down it many years ago. What I didn’t know was that a streetcar used to run in front of house on a small street! I was pretty excited to see that. The line on castro was also a cable car. More about that here:
http://blog.streetcar.org/2008/10/cable-car-to-castro.html
I think it was extended beyond what’s on that map. I looked for my favorite abandoned streetcar tunnel (right at Fort Mason), and it isn’t shown on the map.
Ah, it’s a small transit blog world. Searching for “Fort Mason tunnel” led me to an Overhead Wire post where a commenter points out that it was a railroad tunnel, not a streetcar tunnel.
y’all realize that Seattle had a pretty decent streetcar network as well
I know, I need to find that map.
Here’s one (wow, January, 1941 – that’s right before they shut down the whole system).
It’s interesting how many route numbers are the same on that map.
(sorry about the broken html)
I love how many of the lines (like 1 – 4) match current bus routes.
That’s because they are buses – only 19 and 21 in the north are still streetcars on that map.
Seattle: 1933
Seattle: 1939
These seem worthy of a post for their own posterity
The comments that is, the maps don’t need me to keep them around
Tacoma at one point had one of the most extensive streetcar networks in the world AND it was connected to Seattle’s via the Interurban. What were they thinking when they ripped everything out?
Awesome Tacoma Streetcar Routes Google Map.
That is awesome. I hope that tacome streetcar movement explodes. I was a little disappointed that ST wasn’t providing more Tacoma streetcar in ST2, but it makes sense considering the demographics of pierce county that there would be more sounder and express bus service.
Ok, you’ve started me on a long and dangerous search path. First I look into the Interurban, which leads me to this HistoryLink article, which tells us “Various refinance schemes failed and the city converted to buses and “trackless trolleys” in 1940. The old streetcar rails were torn up and sold to Japan for scrap.”
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. Were the bombs that rained down on our naval stations made of the same steel that was pulled from our streetcar system? Oh Seattle, you’ve made some bad choices.
The US Government sold scrap steel to the Japanese from the removed Fort Stevens gun batteries in late 1940. Torn up streetcar lines is just bad luck, but that is irony.
Excuse the tasteless pun.