Here’s video proof that streetcars can handle snow:

Thanks to Alexjon.

And here’s photo proof that tour coaches are scary:
photo
Full story here.

16 Replies to “Images Of the Day”

  1. They were from Moses Lake– probably thought “Oh, snow, we can handle this”, not expecting, you know, Seattle not plowing and sanding hills.

    Also, re: The Streetcar. It proved its utility and also proved that the city really REALLY needs to kick the decorative skirt and get some hitches so they can create actual trains. More capacity than buses does not equal enough capacity.

    But all the same, I love our little engine that could.

    1. What the heck where they even doing driving on that road? THat street is WAY to narrow for tour coaches.

    1. Yes. Rail does better in the snow. Rubber tires have difficulty in snow, especially his. But rubber tires can do steeper grades (Madison, Yesler, Denny). Snow days happen every once in awhile. Unless R.H. Thompson reincarnates, hills are virtually forever.
      But each mode has its strength and weakness. This snow/ice event is showing the particular weakness of buses. Especially ones with irresponsible drivers (as shown above).

  4. NSBill, Those charter buses were coming from Moses Lake. The streetcars won’t be going quite that far.

    Also, one witness on Capitol Hill said that the one bus she saw was traveling too fast down the hill. Also, one local radio host, Ron, of the Ron and Don show on KIRO, said that he saw those two buses on I-90 earlier, and he was shocked at how fast they were going when they passed him on the freeway. This is appears to be a case of reckless drivers.

      1. I was not making reference to the charter bus as AJ mentions. But rather to the fact that there were so many issues with the buses over the last couple of days as we saw on this site and on the news, paper, etc. And then we see the streetcar going on its merry way. This could presumably be used as a nice little bit of marketing for the light rail folks.

  6. That’s why the Fed’s have required high barriers on any new elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct – blocking the view for all except the tallest vehicles.

  7. “Streetcars can handle the snow.” You should also point out that that video was showing it “handle” a level road. Any car or bus could have also driven down that road.

  8. As someone who grew up in Seattle now living in Portland, let me just exorcise some frustration at the ridiculous and baseless ideas people grasp so tightly up there that light rail “doesn’t work”. I’ve deleted all of the rest of my profanity and name-calling in this reply… I am just grateful to live somewhere that cars aren’t covertly worshiped to the same degree. Here I can go grocery shopping miles away and never check the schedule, and we have TransitTracker which doesn’t leave you in the dark about when an actual bus is going to be at the stop next. It’s far from perfect, but the infrastructure here is sane in a way I now take for granted. I’m sure this is well-covered territory in these parts, but people here in PDX protested to the heavens that nobody would take the MAX and that it wouldn’t work, but ridership greatly exceeded the projections which allowed it to be built in the first place.

    “Does light rail work”? Of course. Cities around the world (and in your blasted backyard!) demonstrate that it does on a daily basis. My question now is “Does Seattle?”

  9. Light rail works when its lines are designed correctly. What we’re dealing with up here is inefficient, political, slow, zig-zagging, almost gerrymandered light rail routings. I’m not against light rail, but I am against poorly designed light rail lines, like our first downtown to the airport line (which will take more time to go from end to end than a bus).

  10. it would be wonderful if when LINK gets extended to Tacoma they also build an express bypass track by boeing field/I-5 to skip the rainier valley and beacon hill.

    have local service from seattle via the rainier valley at-grade line that terminates at sea-tac airport (much like what will open in 2009) and tacoma-seattle service that shares the route by sea-tac then runs on a no-stop express track between sea-tac and SoDo via boeing field/I-5 corridor.

    a seattle-tacoma LINK route that makes all the stops would take forever since its such a long distance

  11. streetcar and MAX are running all night here in portland to keep the tracks and wires from freezing up

    i’m looking down the street right now and see 2 fresh grooves 4′-8.5″ apart in an otherwise snow covered street

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