Modern streetcar/light rail vehicles are, and can be, multiple units, JUST AS THEY WERE IN THE PAST. Please look at the history of the interurbans that once ran in the Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and Bellingham corridors. I think you will agree they were streetcars, as well as light rail TRAINS. They even hauled freight.

I now believe a crossing of the Duwamish River below the “high-rise” West Seattle Bridge would be the preferred route in that “neck of the woods”.

I also feel that SOME dedicated right-of-way could be possible, especially under the West Seattle Bridge, and along the “waterfront streetcar” route.

I am definitely interested in this and, of course, am open to all ideas on such a system.

I enjoy reading the ideas presented by other transit advocates!

Why elevate through Ballard? Ballard between Leary Way and about NW 100th is the collection zone for a northwest light rail line. Are you planning to have it continue on northward from there? If so, to where and by what route?

You simply can’t cross Carkeek Park even if you wanted to so you must be thinking Holman Road to where? Northgate? Aurora Village via the Interurban Right of Way?

It’s only been about ten years ago that the #75 was extended to Ballard, and it currently has only half hour headways west of 125th and Lake City Way. That is pitifully far from the passenger volumes needed for a light rail line, especially one of the grade-separated “metro” style. So just having Northgate as the destination would be wasteful.

I guess if you want it to go to Aurora Village you would have to elevate through Ballard or it would be recreating the Interurban full stop. Personally I think that any development in the old ROW should be mostly at-grade, at least between 115th and 165th, but that’s the collector area and having it run at grade all the way to the Ballard Bridge would be too slow if that were the only way to go downtown.

But, by putting a “wye” in at the southwest corner of the cemetery and running right along its southern edge over to Meridian and Northgate you could provide high speed one-seat service from the Interurban collector area to downtown Seattle using the Northgate “turn-back” slots in North Link, downtown to west side to Northgate light rail and downtown to west side to Aurora Village mid-day local service using at-grade all the way to the bridge. This would require the removal of several houses which is always a thing to give pause.

And of course doing at-grade between 15th and Greenwood is pretty hard to imagine.

How do you propose to cross the Ship Canal? I don’t live anywhere near Fremont any longer, but I did live in upper Fremont (43rd and Phinney) for three years in the early 1980′s and even then from 36th to 34th Fremont was quite a traffic jam. When I visit nowadays it seems frankly hideous most times of the day.

So it seems that the easy way across the Canal, the Fremont Bridge, is a pretty perilous option. The cars are going to be at the mercy of what is pretty mindless retail oriented traffic (e.g. cars braking for jaywalkers, backing in and pulling out of parking slots, turning left suddenly, etc) in the confines of a pretty narrow roadway. The expensive way, a new transit only Fremont Bridge is probably too expensive for the streetcar model.

But, it might be quite a bit less expensive than previously considered. Assuming that the streetcar ROW runs along the east side of Westlake using some of the parking along it as has been proposed, what if it rose up a bit as it approached the Aurora Bridge overcrossing and turned to cross the Ship Canal on a medium height lift bridge that would have relatively few openings just east of the high bridge cantilever supports. The height at the life span would be about as high as the Ballard Bridge or perhaps a few feet higher to minimize sailboat openings.

Once past the heavy cantilever anchors the trackway would diagonal slightly west to the southernmost of the concrete arch supports of the truss roadway and pass through it and the other two arches. The openings in the arches are high enough that the trackway could pass over 34th and land just south of North 35th at the top of the hill on little used (lower) Aurora North. The line would then turn west on North 35th leading directly into Fremont Place with only one intersection on Fremont itself fouled and no interference at all with the important Queen Anne/Magnolia to University District traffic flow from Nickerson onto North 34th.

It’s not cheap to contemplate, but it is far better than risking the very fragile traffic flows at both ends of the bridge.

I grant that this would make the very beautiful Aurora Bridge less attractive, and that’s an important consideration.

??

900,000 turns of passengers between Pier 91 and Pier 66 cruise ships alone. 4.1 MILLION walk on at the WSF dock. 2-3 million at the Pike Place Market. Don’t have stats for the Aquarium, as City of Seattle Enterprise, but all of this would be connected by rail and right of way that we all OWN, on equipment already PAID FOR.

Just extend the damn line NORTH through Myrtle Edwards Park and Pier land. The Port offered to HELP PAY for this 5 years ago. Amgin offered to pay as well, and currently PAYS for a private shuttle to run between it’s campus and town.

Keep the line connected and running to Pioneer Square until the Viaduct replacement forces the line to be severed. Run the line from WSF to Pier 91. Build a temp garage under the viaduct on city or port land, or even use the the Armory space.

WE spent 20 YEARS of tax dollar paid legal fees to get that right of way. We paid for the cars. Squeeze around the SAM park on either side of the Western most side of the rail bridge and follow the edge of the SAM Park. The original design of the park CALLED for a trolley car stop. AMGEN’s campus could take a stop at the far south and north end. It might even encourage them to make MORE use of the site…

Then a stop as close to the ship piers as Das Homeland Security will allow. If nothing other then the 400 plus EMPLOYEES for the pier use it, it will be a success fiscally, and environmentally. It reduces traffic issues on Elliott and 15th, it reduces demand for parking. Its ELECTRIC not Diesel. AND IT’s MOSTLY PAID FOR. We need to add 2 miles of track through the east side of the Park and a temp shed.

I bet you can do this for less than 52 Million Dollars?

How much profit is the FREE bus turning? There is obviously a rationale worth metro running it… even if the bus generates 1/5th the passenger count the old line did.

ccording to the story at History Link, the line Averaged 200,000 a year in the first few years it ran.. BEFORE we had ANY Cruise ship traffic OR Amgen OR F5 or Classmate etc.any of the office buildings on the west side of Elliott…

This line SHOULD be the very next one we build. It COULD be operational in time for next summer if the city would make it a priority.

The only question is how much are the people of seattle willing to tax themselves? My assessment, and you are free to disagree, is that if McGinn waits until Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012 to put a measure on the ballot, he could $4 to $6 billion in taxing authority over 15 years. McGinn is right that Seattle will pass a cheap transit in any year, but if he combines seattle’s generally pro-transit attitudes with the youth voter turnout we can expect in 2012, the sky is the limit. The millennial generation is the most liberal, pro-tax and pro-transit generation in American history, and 50% of the adult population in Seattle is under 40.

What I stated is the general definition of each.

– Sheikh Zaki Yamani – former Saudi Arabian oil minister

Do not underestimate the elasticity of gasoline prices. When gas went to $4 a gallon people were parking their SUVs in droves and cramming into my bus unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They were also combining trips and switching to bicycles – all the things you would expect people to do when costs escalate. Our whole economy is built on cheap oil so it will take time for people to respond to higher oil prices but people are changing their ways. Hummers aren’t exactly sailing of of the lots like they were earlier in this decade.

It gets a little easier if you think of most of these people going downtown and some of them continuing on to somewhere else. Of course, then you lose that wonderful talking point in which the dramatic sweep from West Seattle to Ballard makes it unnecessary to add any details.

I particularly liked the part where McGinn said it was the state politicians holding Seattleites back from their natural hankering to build transit- as though Nichols wouldn’t have built a transit line from West Seattle if he could have.

For my own part, I think replacing the highest ridership buses with light-rail streetcars should be the first order of business- not because they would be any faster, but to carry more passengers per employee and reduce the system’s exposure to fuel-oil price shocks. As matters stand, every extra rider may be a benefit to society, but they’re just all extra expense for the transit system.