note that routes 7, 14, and 36 carry more than 8K transit riders per day on South Jackson Street. the key feasibiity issue will running a streetcar and the trolleybuses on the same corridor with the key intersections involved. the AWV scenarios included innovative concepts for First Hill service: routes 3 and 4 revised to use the new Yesler Way overhead, so they would serve the front door of Harborview and Yesler Terrace in addition to their current markets; and, a revised Route 49 extended to Pioneer Square via the new Yesler Way wire; it would serve the U District, north Capitol Hill, Broadway Link, SCCC, Swedish, Harborview, Yesler Terrace, and Sounder. the key advantages of the trolleybus: hill climbing, tighter headway, and directness of travel. The ST2 First Hill streetcar is planned with rather long headways and an indirect path to go through the topographical saddlepoint. shoud feasibility issues arise, the ST2 funds could be redeployed to great advantage. also note that the next fleet of trolleybus will probably have the attributes of the Vancouver fleet: low floor and off wire capability.

It’s pretty hard to compare cost for Tacoma Link with ST Express.

Saying that costs have remained flat for Tacoma Link while escalating for ST Express is meaningless without “externalities”. Tacoma Link is an even more sorry excuse for making the case for streetcars than SLU.

But wait, there’s more! The bus, as we all know, runs on roads that are free (apparently God put them there in an absent-minded moment). The longer rail line runs on leased rails. And the shorter rail line runs on rails and land it owns. This is starting to take on the aspects of some study in medieval land tenure, where everyone owns land in some form of tenantcy, leasehold, or feu.

Ah, not to worry, though- just parse finely, cook for a while, and voila!, a head-to-head comparison of cost-per-passenger-mile! Throw the externalities in the hog trough, and serve with a goodly-sized salt cellar and the beverage of your choice. As with most things, if you drink enough, it will start to look pretty good.

She states that their 10T’s are good for a maximum grade of 9%

Tacoma Link has a cost per passenger mile of $2.60, ST Express is 28 cents and Sounder is 17 cents. The mile that Tacoma Link covers ferries people from downtown to free parking built at a cost to ST of $10k per stall. ST Express and Sounder ridership are sensitive to the cost of gas but Tacoma Link is free.

If you take the cost of boarding times two (one trip each way) it works out to the same price as paying for downtown parking (~$7 / day). Ah, but there’s excess capacity and ridership is growing. Except ridership has plateaued and even standing room only with every car full the entire day cost per passenger mile still only drops to 25 cents. Actually not even that good since all of the costs would go up; the electricity is less than 4% of operational cost.

Any issue that I have with your numbers and assigning a singular “intention” to the votes of a few hundred thousand individuals aside, I agree that there needs to be some outreach and study of the FHSC and determining the best solution for central Seattle. What was the process that ST used to reach the initial alignment anyway?

As for the idea that they’re spending $120 million on “the first idea that anyone ever came up with”- baloney.

We have little evidence as to how much of the streetcar’s ridership would be cannibalizing existing bus routes and we have no way of knowing what portion of those streetcar riders are actually the target audience (first hill commuters).

Oh, and BTW, by “improve” I mean 3-4 minute headways, layovers at the link stations so that the bus is sitting there when people pop up from underground, ETB the whole way, substantially improved interiors to make the buses comfortable and classy, extending the free ride area to include first hill or using off-vehice fare payment, not stopping every block, but instead stopping right at the doorsteps of the hospitals, and, most importantly, dedicated ROW so that they can speed up the hill.

All that can be done for what they are spending on the streetcar and it would serve First Hill much better than the Broadway alignment which First Hill doesn’t even want. ST, being as religiously pro-rail-in-all-circumstances as some of the Bloggers here, basically shoved this streetcar down First Hill’s throat, despite the fact that it doesn’t go where people want to go.

ST and Seattle absolutely have the authority to replace the First Hill streetcar with a better solution if a better solution is found. Finding a better solution would involve thinking comprehensively, which is not something that transportation agencies, of any kind, are particularly good at.