This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
In a guest post at Capitol Hill Seattle, King County Councilman Phillips writes:
I am a strong proponent of maintaining our successful electric trolley system, but I also look forward to the results of the study, as it may present opportunities to upgrade our system and address some of the issues with our trolleys, like the problems running them when snow or construction impacts their routes. I will, however, strongly resist any attempt to replace our electric trolleys with hybrid diesel buses simply to save money, and I hope I can count on your support next year to let other King County leaders know how popular our electric trolleys are.
Read the whole thing if you’re interested in this issue. Certainly there will be a good debate in the near future on this, and it’s good to know where Phillips stands.
I also got this reply from SDOT’s Jonathan Dong: “Thank you for your email which expressed your concerns regarding the electric trolley buses. We appreciate your interest and feedback on this issue.
At this time, there is no formal proposal to replace the electric trolley buses with diesel hybrid buses. In 2009, King County conducted an audit to identify strategies to reduce costs. The audit suggested that King County could save up to $8.7 million if it replaced electric trolleys with diesel hybrid buses.
In response to the audit, SDOT staff met with community groups to discuss the audit and collect feedback from them on their perception of the electric trolleys. We discussed the tradeoffs of switching to diesel hybrid buses and asked participants to fill out a questionnaire.
From the responses in the questionnaire, we heard strong feedback from Seattle residents that their perception of electric trolleys is positive and they support Metro to investing funds to convert more bus routes to electric. The vast majority of Seattle residents do not support the removal of electric buses.
King County Metro is scheduled to begin an analysis of the electric trolley system later this year. SDOT plans to work closely with them on their analysis and use the community feedback that was collected in our discussions.
Thank you again for your interest in the issue of the electric trolleys. If you have any further questions, please contact me.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Dong, AICP
Senior Transportation Planner
Seattle Department of Transportation”
Here’s the comment I, Joshua Daniel Franklin, sent in:
“As a Seattle resident and parent I encourage you to retain the electric trolley buses.
My daughter loves spotting the different types of buses and I’ve explained to her
that the quieter ones with electric wires don’t put exhaust on our streets and do
not need fuel-burning engines. Also fuel prices for diesel are unlikely to stay low,
but we have an excellent public electric utility.
As the ETBs are replaced, I would also encourage you to look at low-floor trolleys
as used in Vancouver BC and other cities. They are much easier to board for young
children or adults with strollers or wheelchairs, and have larger windows.”
Hearing from Mike Lindblom and Larry Phillips in almost the same week about this makes me think they’re giving a heads-up that now would be a good time to sound off and express support. It may be that the people who want to end the ETB service are thinking of doing it by a sudden and unexpected move that doesn’t give the public time to organize against it, and Lindblom and Phillips have got wind if this.
Just sayin’….