I had to look on a map to see where Weedin Place is. It’s where I used to bike to Northgate when I lived in the U district. Yes, it’s a good location for a streetcar.

I can see a use for a route on 25th and 65th. But if 65th is too narrow, I started thinking further south, like 55th. But there’s no way to get through the hillside between 15th and 25th where the streets get really narrow on the hillside. Unless you went through Ravenna Park (just kidding). So maybe a bus from UW station to Roosevelt Station on 25th & 65th is the best we can hope for.

I’ll try to get some numbers if I can get a meeting with them soon to lobby for ORCA readers on the monorail.

But as others have said, there’s no way you’d get the Ravenna Boulevard median because that would destroy a park that people feel strongly about preserving. However, running it on the street there might be doable. Some people (like me) would consider that a visual enhancement.

A Seattle-Eastside rail route has been on the drawing boards since the 1960s, so it’s clearly time. The 550 is essentially BRT (except evenings/Sundays).

I do believe that “If you build it, they will come”. (Unless you put it in a really bad location.) A lot of potential trips on Bel-Red or between Redmond and Bellevue aren’t being made by transit because there is no rapid transit.

Plus, there’s an argument that the only way to get rail on the Eastside is to build a starter line on the Eastside. Then after people get used to it, they’ll want more. And it would be odd for Seattle to say, “Light rail is wonderful, we’re very happy about it, it should go everywhere … but we don’t support building it on the Eastside at this time.” It also diminishes the impression that “Seattle gets all the transit dollars”.

I’d love to see that plan.

Though to be fair Roosevelt did say they’d take more density if the station was moved to 12th. They also asked for a neighborhood plan update with upzones around the station as part of dealing with the Sisley property redevelopment.

However using the median isn’t a good idea because of the creek underneath it and all the trees that would have to be removed. But that doesn’t rule out the roadway. The car would of course have to run in mixed traffic because there are the bike lanes, but there is little enough traffic to accept that.

Now you might put the bike lane in the median without disrupting anything. Then the bike lanes would be available for the street car.

The overriding weakness is that it doesn’t serve the Roosevelt or the Brooklyn Link station.

Somebody bought it. See machine #617 at the above website. I wonder who bought it? Brian?

http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/steepest.htm

1953 State Highway Department rejects Seattle Transit proposal for rail transit in new Central Seattle Freeway (future Interstate-5).

1956 Seattle Transit Commission appeals to the State Highway Commission to include transit right-of-ways in the design of Interstate 5. The request is rejected as too expensive due to an estimated $16 million price tag.

1960 Puget Sound Regional Transportation Study begins to plan new freeway system but rules out rail transit.

1968 Voters pass seven Forward Thrust bonds, but not transit plan, on February 13. The $1.15 billion transit plan included 49 miles of rail serving Ballard, northeast Seattle, Bellevue and Renton.

So there you have it. It was considered by Seattle Transit but the state didn’t agree and built the freeway without consideration for future conversion to rail transit. I think that’s one reason the Forward Thrust plan didn’t use I-5.

Now if they converted it somehow into a route that went, say, up McClellan, then south on Beacon for a bit, then west to West Seattle… that would be functional and useful. Not that we need more service on Beacon Ave., probably, but the east-west service to West Seattle would be great.