I missed this Friday, because I don’t actually subscribe to the Times, and the P-I has been running cover stories about local American Idol contestants. Apparently the South Lake Union Streetcar is about $3 million under budget because of cost over-runs, lower than expected advertising revenues, and higher than expected start-up costs. Metro, which will operate the car, wants $2mn per year rather than $1.5mn because the costs will be more than they had anticipated.
The good news is the city has already lined up advertisers for all of the cars and 6 of the 11 stations.
Nick Licata, who is not getting my vote in the future, was against its construction and still continues to cause trouble about it. “I think it’s unfortunately indicative of how we’re not paying attention to the more basic services around the city. How did Seattle become unaffordable? It’s through a number of these projects that benefit a small sector of the population.”
How did it become unaffordable? Because of the general housing bubble and a robust economy! Not because of a street car! Good transit will make the city more affordable as people will be able to lower the number of cars per household or even ditch their cars entirely.
This project is important, and I hope it succeeds, because if it is successful it will mean that more streetcars will be built. And the car was a bargain, more than half of the car was paid for by landowners by a neighborhood property tax.