This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
As South Lake Union fills up, so does the streetcar.
Speaking of ridership — ORCA’s now serving 200,000 riders a day. That’s half of Metro’s 400,000 daily boardings. Of course, not all ORCA holders use Metro, but it puts it in perspective. Not bad, considering institutions like UW still haven’t adopted it (but will soon).
When I look back on the 30 years that SLU lay fallow, and how much more appropriate it would have been to develop that area instead outlying areas, I certainly wonder about a process that directs public money for transit to developing the Bel-Red corridor and leaves it up to millionaires (or not) who can form LIDs to develop transit in Seattle.
I have a feeling we’ll be paying for that half century of cheap gas in more ways than one for many years to come.
Well, what’s done is done, and soon the Center for Wooden Boats will be joined by a park and museum at the south end of the lake. Quite a change from the dark days of the early 70s, but we shoulda kept the submarine…