SDOT Orders 10 CAF Streetcars for Center City Connector

45 Replies to “SDOT Orders 10 CAF Streetcars for Center City Connector”

1. So, when this all gets built, how does one bike from Eastlake to Pike Place Market without ending up in the hospital? Will there be any bike accommodations on Stewart St?

   1. I’m surprised no one has though to petition the city to require flange fillers in the tracks.

      1. It is not clear that they will work. Toronto has considered adding them, but there are issues.

         TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says the commission is not aware of any situation where flange fillers have been used successfully on streetcar tracks, and warns they could interfere with the electrical current that powers the trams.

         Source: https://nowtoronto.com/news/streetcar-tracks-a-bloody-hazard-for-cyclists/

         They may also derail a streetcar (again in Toronto): https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/09/07/cycling_in_toronto_how_i_broke_my_teeth_and_how_it_could_all_be_different.html

         Here is a more generic report on bike safety and streetcars (http://www.altaplanning.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/Bicycle_Streetcar_Memo_ALTA.pdf):

         However, extensive experiments in Switzerland seem to indicate that flange filler is not appropriate for streetcar tracks

         I have no idea why, but I assume there are technical issues.

   2. Eastlake Avenue to Thomas Street to 9th Avenue to Bell Street to 2nd Avenue is pretty doable and crosses the tracks at a 90-degree angle.

      I don’t really get the hype around streetcar tracks. Whenever I use a bike, whether a proper one or the bikeshare bikes, I slow down and cross the tracks as straight as I can and have never been worse for wear. Slowing down helps a lot, whether behind the handlebar or behind the wheel.

      1. “I don’t really get the hype around streetcar tracks.”

         Exactly. I have gone over the handlebars because I hit the curb (don’t ask), but I didn’t blame the curb.

         Cross at an angle, maybe lift a little weight off the handlebars when the front wheel goes over, and lift your behind and shift weight forward when the rear wheel goes over. Easy peasy.

         If the flanges can be installed and maintained at a reasonable cost, by all means install them. But the death trap hyperbole gets a little overheated.

      2. >> I don’t really get the hype around streetcar tracks.

         You are lucky.

         Imagine if the city — for no good reason — allowed tigers to roam the streets. It is pretty easy to avoid the tigers — you just have to approach them from a certain angle. But if a car, a pedestrian, or some other hazard forces you to run into the tiger, well, tough luck I guess.

         Streetcars are kind of like, except they make less sense than tigers.

      3. “Eastlake Avenue to Thomas Street to 9th Avenue to Bell Street to 2nd Avenue is pretty doable and crosses the tracks at a 90-degree angle.”

         Yes, you *can* do it that way. But if you’re not well-versed in streetcar hazards and have actively planned out a route in advance to avoid them, that’s not the way you’re going to take. The obvious, most direct, and fastest route is to just go straight down Stewart – which will soon force you to ride in the *left* lane, once past 5th to avoid riding along the tracks.

         In fact, it’s actually riding parallel to the tracks, not crossing the tracks that’s the most dangerous. Crossing the tracks, you can slow down and cross at 90 degrees. It’s when you’re riding between the two tracks and then you try to turn, change lanes, or swerve around an obstacle, that accidents happen. You can avoid this, of course, by riding in the left lane. But that goes against every driver’s conditioning that you pass and the left and bicycles are supposed to ride on the right. It’s a no-win situation.

      4. Yeah, streetcar tracks are exactly like tigers roaming the streets. Effing great analogy. How long did that take to come up with?

         “You can avoid this, of course, by riding in the left lane.”

         No, you avoid it by being aware of your surroundings and taking a little responsibility for your own safety. Riding parallel to tracks is not hard: if a hazard presents itself and you can neither safely stop nor turn your wheel to cross at a safe angle you were obviously biking too fast for the context.

      5. “allowed tigers to roam the streets. It is pretty easy to avoid the tigers”

         Hmm. So you’re saying that railroad tracks roam around the streets? Now I don’t actually live in Seattle, but I do visit and the times I’ve been there all the railroad tracks, whether they’re on the street or on private ROW, just sat there. Is this mobility a new thing, and how does Metro operate the streetcars in this new environment?

         (To be more serious, this is a dumb argument. The tracks are just sitting there like any other piece of street furniture, and people can easily learn to treat them just like we treat curbs, stairs, or anything else that it’s not sensible to ride bicycles into.)

      6. “Track hype…”

         It’s probably the same biking folks that don’t understand red on a traffic light means stop…

      7. I know the analogy seemed absurd. That was the point. Let me be as explicit as possible:

         1) The streetcars serve no purpose. Feel free to argue that point, but consider that they don’t carry any more riders than a bus. Therefore, you could accomplish the same thing with a bus.

         2) The tracks are a hazard. Of course they are a hazard. Otherwise, cities wouldn’t work so hard to mitigate the hazard. There are various ways in which they mitigate the hazard. In Amsterdam they sometimes separate the tracks completely from the bike lanes (http://www.theurbancountry.com/2012/08/streetcar-tracks-bicycles.html). Where there is a crossing, it is at 90 degrees (http://www.theurbancountry.com/2012/08/streetcar-tracks-bicycles.html).

         There are plenty of cities that have had streetcars for years, yet they still pose a hazard. This is because they can’t afford to completely rework the street design, or move the tracks. Toronto is such a city, and those pictures were taken from an article that was written after an accident there (http://www.theurbancountry.com/2012/08/streetcar-tracks-bicycles.html).

         Seattle, of course, won’t be able to completely mitigate the problem, and they will be a hazard, just as they are a hazard in Toronto and other cities. The big difference is that we are introducing the hazard for no good reason, and basically telling bike riders “just try and avoid it” (e. g. ride on a different street).

         What is striking in these discussions is that experienced riders (like asdf2) are the ones stating clearly that they are a hazard. These are guys that ride hundreds of times every year, in all sorts of weather. They are the ones that know about biking, and can tell about close calls. They are also, typically, very safe, cautious drivers. When they explain the hazard, other, far less experienced riders, poo-poo the hazard, and start victim blaming. Oddly enough, they do is opposite directions. Either someone is a neophyte (“you avoid it by being aware of your surroundings…”) or a maniac (“It’s probably the same biking folks that don’t understand red on a traffic light means stop…”).

      8. “What is striking in these discussions is that experienced riders (like asdf2) are the ones stating clearly that they are a hazard. These are guys that ride hundreds of times every year, in all sorts of weather.”

         Hi. I ride hundreds of times every year, in all sorts of weather, and I don’t find railroad tracks to be any problem in my home town of Portland, Oregon. The ‘hazard’ that railroad tracks present is minimal — much less of a hazard than cars or busses are — and people who can deal with curbs can easily deal with them.

      9. Short reply: You’re still dead wrong about streetcars, but that is another argument for another thread.

         “When they explain the hazard, other, far less experienced riders, poo-poo the hazard, and start victim blaming. Oddly enough, they do is opposite directions. Either someone is a neophyte…”(“you avoid it by being aware of your surroundings…”)

         First off, no one victim blamed. Put on some big boy pants. Second, how, pray tell, do you surmise asdf is “far” more experienced than I am, or that I am in any way a bicycling neophyte? As someone who began urban bike commuting from the North Side to the South Side of Chicago as an all-weather rider in the early ’90s, I’d like an answer. (Trying to invalidate any commenter’s opinion with a baseless assumption about “qualifications” isn’t a good look, for the record.) And you draw a false dichotomy anyway: STB has long had regular cyclists who don’t see what all the fuss is about. I think even old Ben Schiendelman was one of us. Perhaps less of a neophyte commenter would know that.

         Again, train tracks are street furniture, managed by cyclists like any other street furniture. Should cities take reasonable steps to make them as safe as possible for all users? Sure. So maybe you should pause between dreaming up absurd tiger analogies and recycling the same tired 500-word rant about streetcars to note that no one here has actually argued against flange fillers. We’re merely addressing overcooked rhetoric that advances no cause.

      10. >> First off, no one victim blamed.

          Really, then who is to blame? Seriously, I put the blame on the city, for creating an unnecessary hazard. It is pretty simple, really. There is no good reason for the streetcar tracks to exist, as there is no good reason for these streetcars. Thus the city is to blame for introducing an unnecessary hazard.

          The victim, obviously, is the rider. If you say that the streetcar tracks aren’t to blame, then the only logical conclusion is that the rider is to blame. That is the same thing as saying that the victim is to blame.

          >> Second, how, pray tell, do you surmise asdf is “far” more experienced than I am, or that I am in any way a bicycling neophyte?

          Fair enough, I shouldn’t have implied that you had less experience than asdf2, or anyone else for that matter. For that, I apologize.

          Yet the fact remains that you clearly implied that the problem was the rider, not the existence of the unnecessary tracks. You implied that inexperience was to blame

          No, you avoid it by being aware of your surroundings and taking a little responsibility for your own safety.

          Do you really think that riders like asdf2 are unaware of their surroundings and don’t take responsibility for their own safety? Seriously?

          Cross at an angle, maybe lift a little weight off the handlebars when the front wheel goes over, and lift your behind and shift weight forward when the rear wheel goes over. Easy peasy.

          Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Everyone knows that. Seriously, everyone knows how to cross a track safely. That isn’t the problem, yet you imply it is.

          Do you really think that all of these accidents are first time accidents? That these are all biking neophytes there were never taught how to cross a railroad line, suddenly encountered one, and crashed? Really? The thousands of people who crash in Toronto are all blissfully unaware of the existence of streetcar tracks and then, wham, they fall over them. The streetcar tracks have been there for generations, yet new riders just haven’t figured it out yet. Despite one third of the serious bike accidents in the city involving the tracks, word hasn’t gotten out yet. None of them take personal responsibility for their own safety, I guess.

          That is absurd. As asdf2 explained, they are an additional hazard. Most of the time, a rider passes over the hazard just fine. But if a secondary hazard appears (such a car or pedestrian) they are forced into very dangerous maneuvers. They can’t cross the tracks the way they are used to crossing them. Sometimes it works out fine, sometimes they crash. But the numbers in Toronto (a threefold increase in accidents on streets with streetcars) suggest that even experienced, safe, cautious riders often can’t deal with the additional hazard.

          In the case of Seattle, they are an unnecessary hazard. Our streetcars serve no useful purpose. They don’t have any of the advantages of streetcars, but have all of the disadvantages mentioned by Jarrett Walker here: http://humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html. It is extremely difficult to mitigate the problem here (as
          it is in Toronto) because we don’t have the space to dedicate to the problem like Amsterdam has. But unlike Toronto, our streetcars are pointless, because they aren’t significantly bigger than our buses. They are a stupid idea for this city, and not only a waste of money, but an unnecessary hazard.

          We’re merely addressing overcooked rhetoric that advances no cause.

          I don’t think it is overcooked rhetoric to state that these are an unnecessary hazard. They are clearly a hazard (the Toronto study showed that — https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3242-3) and they are unnecessary (since a bus can do just as well). The cause I am advancing is the same cause that a lot of people have advanced, which is that we should not add to them.

   3. How do they handle this in Europe? There is such a massive overlap of cyclists and street tracks over there that they have either a) figured out a technical fix, or b) have cyclists with better situational awareness. I would lean b, since their auto drivers have dope skills (as in, they pay proper attention) compared to their US counterparts.

      1. In Helsinki at least the tram tracks and bike paths don’t overlap a whole lot. You have bike paths on completely different rights of way than the roads and tram tracks, ones that go through parks or up on an elevated sidewalks or something like that. It’s not this painted bicycle logo in the road that we have in Seattle. So, cyclists don’t need to ride over the tracks nearly as often, and when they do they’re just more careful about it.

         I agree with Bruce. I’ve never gotten in an accident because of tracks, and I bike around them a fair amount. When I cross them I make sure to do it at a high angle and I’ve never had any problems.

      2. Fewer road bikes in Europe, at least in my casual observations. Not that you can’t fall riding a wider-tired bike, but it is a lot easier with narrow tires.

         I recently saw a rider fall under the Ballard Bridge where the “trail” (such as it is there) crosses that railroad track. She took the crossing at a less-perpendicular angle, maybe 30 degrees, and went straight down on her side. Fortunately she wasn’t badly hurt, just scrapes and bruises. The crossing there is not designed to force you to take it perpendicularly so unfamiliar riders may not realize until they are almost on it.

      3. Remember crossing at 30 degrees does not mean the wheels are crossing at 30 degrees, many (most) people will ride with some wobbling of the handlebars. At smaller angles, all it takes is a slight wobble to get “grooved!”

      4. How do they handle this in Europe? There is such a massive overlap of cyclists and street tracks over there that they have either a) figured out a technical fix, or b) have cyclists with better situational awareness. I would lean b, since their auto drivers have dope skills (as in, they pay proper attention) compared to their US counterparts.

         or c) they get hurt there as well.

         Every set of tracks in an urban environment increases the likelihood of accidents. The question is whether it is worth it. For a handful of large streetcars that carry huge numbers of people per train in very urban environments (such as Paris) then it offers an advantage. But for Seattle, there is no trade-off. Our streetcars have every disadvantage of all streetcars (including being a hazard to bicycles) but none of the advantages (because our streetcars are no bigger than our buses).

      5. But don’t you feel sophisticated riding on a street that has a streetcar, in a city that has streetcars? Isn’t that why we have streetcars?

      6. Fewer road bikes in Europe, at least in my casual observations.

         Fewer road tracks in Europe too.

         Or, where bike paths do cross tracks, you make sure they do so at a non-dangerous angle.
         (red = bike path)
         https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4786374,13.5241795,3a,75y,138.14h,93.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spZ3nHpp5S6-w_V680tcalA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

2. What kind of frequency will be possible with the 20 cars? Because continuing with the current frequency isn’t going to cut it. Needs to be Link frequency or better not worse than many busses.

   And rubber flange fillers at intersections should be standard and mandatory. We’re building the first light rail on a floating bridge, I bet we can figure out how to do flange fillers with streetcars. My understanding is the new streetcars don’t need electrical contact 100% of the time, so it should be doable with some thoughtful engineering!

   1. The CCC project is 10 minute frequency on each line, so 5 minutes where they overlap on First Avenue. That is Link’s frequency. I can’t say whether they’ll water it down evenings and weekends.

      1. The SDOT plan is to use no additional service subsidy aside that now provided by Metro for SLU and by ST for the FH line. They will use pixie dust. They forecast 25K weekday rides. At 20K weekday rides, a the low scenario, it is still an average of about 55 rides per trip just for circulation. It does not seem plausible. Note that the E Line attracts 17K weekday rides. The first application of the STOPS forecast model was the CCC streetcar. I would guess it does not handle the background transit network well. The CCC construction and operation on 1st Avenue will make the downtown Seattle transit capacity issues worse.

      2. The SDOT operating plan is complex. The five-minute headway will be difficult to provide, as each trip will begin at one unreliable tail or the other.

      3. >> The five-minute headway will be difficult to provide, as each trip will begin at one unreliable tail or the other.

         Right, but all they need to do is change the routing to a different street. Oh wait, can’t do that, this is a streetcar we are talking about.

         So basically, the streetcars will bunch up. When that happens, they will look big, kind of like a real streetcar. By that I mean they will look like they are bigger than a bus. Being bigger than a bus is kind of the whole point of streetcars (the essential element, really) yet for some reason, the folks who designed ours seemed to have forgotten that part. So instead we will have two vehicles, back to back, with two drivers. There is an advantage to that, of course, in that the driver in back can always pass the vehicle in front.

         Oh wait, ….

      4. RossB
         +1,000
         Rail without its own ROW, or larger vehicles for additional capacity is a complete and utter waste of money

      5. I agree with the above that unless both “tails” have exclusive ROW, it will be a complete mess maintaining frequency on 1st Ave. In fact, breaking it up into two overlapping “lines” is just silly and it will be a complete mess and make the service worse than a bus.

         Does a bus between SLU and First Hill exist? Nope, requires a transfer to get up the hill. PLEASE don’t make the streetcar also require a transfer to get up the hill! Better to make it 7-8 minutes frequency along the entire unified corridor from Pike/Pine and Broadway to SLU. It would also serve as a downtown area “loop” of sorts (actually, more like two loops). When combined with Madison rapid ride and ORCA payment on the monorail, it starts to fill in a decent congestion free network–one you can walk to from pretty much anywhere in the downtown area. So like any individual bike lane, the advantage is perhaps not really realized until it is part of a well integrated network.

         At any rate, both “lines” had BETTER serve the transit hub at 5th and Jackson–crying shame if they don’t!

         Do it right, or else it will indeed have no advantage over a bus. Well, apart from a more comfortable ride and cashless all door boarding and perception (which does matter!). It’s not hard to imagine creating the ROW on Broadway either–when I use Zipcar I always drive on 12th or Boren and avoid Broadway anyway. Thru traffic is not very much, so take some of the street parking for local business access where needed, or allow shared use in LIMITED portions for LOCAL traffic only. Even Jackson ST is really only congested before and after games, which would be just as much the case if it were two car lanes or 8 car lanes.

      6. Do it right, or else it will indeed have no advantage over a bus. Well, apart from a more comfortable ride and cashless all door boarding and perception (which does matter!).

         The main reason it is more comfortable is because it is going really slow. If we slowed down all the buses, they would be just as smooth. Lots of buses have cashless all door boarding (in some cities, all the buses do). As far as perception goes, I don’t think there are that many people who perceive this streetcar as being better than a bus, otherwise, ridership would be as good as a bus. The 49 is a very small route bus (like the streetcars) yet it carries over 7,000 riders a day, or about 2,000 more than both of these streetcar lines. It is obvious that performance matters, and our streetcars don’t perform as well as our buses.

3. CAF’s record in North America has been pretty spotty. Amtrak’s railcars were delivered years behind schedule and apparently Cincinnati and KC both had problems getting their streetcars on time. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. The Cincinnati streetcar in the picture is a nice looking vehicle, however.

   1. They have established relationships with vendors able to meet USA requirements now. Should go a bit more smoothly.

4. As a frequent rider of Cincinnati’s streetcars, I can tell you that the CAF streetcars are the nicest I’ve ridden in the US. The fact that they are 100% low floor with no steps inside and have four doors on each side makes it easy to get on and off. Cincinnati’s streetcar stops also have level boarding at all four doors making it fully ADA accessible with no need to extend a ramp for people in wheelchairs.

   Will Seattle be building their center city streetcar stops to have level boarding with the CAF streetcars?

   1. If past is prolog, they will likely not build level boarding first. Then a few years later, they will tear it out and rebuild with level boarding.

      1. I’m mostly curious because I don’t believe the current Skoda style streetcars have level boarding capabilities and may not be the same height as the CAF streetcars. Seattle could do what Kansas City did—build stations with level boarding for the two center doors but still have steps for the front and back doors. KC did this so that buses could stop at their streetcar stops.

      2. These are 100% low floor cars, so there shouldn’t be stairs anywhere. The Skoda cars aren’t 100% low floor cars like these are.

         Midland Metro in the UK also uses Urbos 3 style cars, with near subway style performance achieved in places with curb height platforms. Lots of images and YouTube videos out there show how low the floor height is on this car design.

5. I’m not an electrical specialist and may have this all wrong, but doesn’t the First Hill segment run off-wire going downhill? Will these vehicles allow for that, or will wire be needed on the First Hill part of the streetcar route now? Didn’t we spend lots more money and wait two years for the special no-wire-segment streetcars in the first place?

   1. Ok. I see that they claim to run off-wire. Shouldn’t SDOT test one on the FHSC line to make sure before committing to a full order?

      1. Here’s a video of the CAF Urbos 3 streetcars in Zaragoza, Spain, which run off-wire in the city center. Although, these are a slightly longer variant than what Cincinnati and Kansas City have.

   2. Not commenting on the factuality of that, but why is it important for streetcars to have offwire capability? I get it with trolley buses – it allows them to maneuver around obstacles and/or pass each other – but why would this matter for a streetcar, which can do neither of those things whether or not it possesses offwire capability?

      1. First Hill has a bunch of obstacles and trolley bus wire, so they left out the downhill wire for the streetcar.

         Also, if a substation goes down or other wire issue happens it can be nice to still move the cars.

      2. Specifically, Broadway has east-west trolley wires that pantographs can’t cross easily. So they use the battery between Pine and James Streets.

6. Looks like more uncomfortable plastic seats…

   Why do our light rail and streetcar vehicles have these terrible seats, while our buses have at least some minimal padding? The ST express seats are actually really comfortable.

   Not only that, but the seats are pretty small with minimal legroom. Feels like sitting at a grade schooler’s desk.

7. Note the key question raised by RossB: the track hazard comes with few benefits to the transit network. We could have a better transit network if we used the local capital and right of way better. With the CCC, we get increased risk of bike accidents and worse transit than we could have achieved. Those making the CCC choices were wearing streetcar blinders.

8. This carping about the streetcars is so boring that I’ll just say, “I hope you win, and that your win energizes the transit haters enough to derail (that’s a pun) everything. In very particular, the Holy “Ballard-UW” fiasco replacing an every ten minute (six at the rush hours) 60′ bus with four car LRV’s.

   1. Do you really think that a four car train running underground, replacing a bus stuck in traffic *most of the day* is really a fiasco?

      Oh, and why would a transit hater be energized by what most people would consider a transit victory? The goal is do what Providence did, and spend the money on improving bus service, not wasting it on a pointless streetcar project. Providence will get more transit (and better transit) by making the switch. We should do the same.

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