Seattle has a long history with rail public transit. This map was drawn by Harry Foesig and published in Leslie Blanchard’s 1968 book, The Street Railway Era in Seattle: a Chronicle of Six Decades. Despite the map depicting Seattle 129 years ago, many of the routes shown are still served by Metro routes today.
- RapidRide D runs on 15th Ave, Elliott Way, and Mercer St.
- Westlake Ave is served by Route 40.
- Eastlake Ave now has Route 70, soon to be the J Line.
- RapidRide G covers most of Madison, Route 11 covers the eastern third.
- The Central District had two routes similar to today’s routes 3 and 4.
- Route 7 travels down Rainier.
STB Writer Nathan Dickey observed that Harbor Island is drawn on the map, even though it did not exist in 1896. As shown below, it was built during the first half of the 20th century.
This is an open thread.
Wait, are the RapidRide numbers for the north end (D going to Ballard, E going up Aurora) somehow descended from these streetcar numbers, or is it coincidence?
The E isn’t going up Aurora in this map, it’s on/around where Westlake is today. I don’t remember when the Aurora Bridge was built but it definitely didn’t exist in 1896. It’s a total coincidence that today’s D is similar to this D. RapidRide letters roughly reflect the order of the RapidRide routes opening.
Apple has added the 2 line to their map between Lynwood and SODO. When you click on a station, it says that 2 line service will “resume” on 8/22.
Yeah, well, they also label it the “Gulf of America.”
I think the more notable thing is: If that data is being pulled from GTFS, that means someone at ST has gone in and added that note. Something to keep an eye on.
“f that data is being pulled from GTFS, that means someone at ST has gone in and added that note. Something to keep an eye on.”
More likely something was interpreted incorrectly in the process.
Every service_id is associated with a start and end date. This prevents Google or other applications show anything not yet implemented. For example, King County Metro updated their GTFS with Fall 2025 service change detail on July 11th, but you won’t see those new routes and changes until their start date.
Google maps also has the 2 line if you click on specific station (no line drawn yet) like Capitol hill, doesn’t say when it’ll start service though.
Since both are showing safe to say that this is meaningful. Would be very cool if we started seeing double frequency on the main branch in a couple weeks
Oops. I missed this. I said the same thing g below.
I can’t imagine that ST would be making plans based on the ability to get trains across the bridge regularly in 2 weeks, seeing how there hasn’t even been live wire testing yet. I wouldn’t think that there is enough spare train capacity to run 2 line service on the westside without trains from Bellevue though.
It is also interesting that 2 line service is marked as running through SoDo, considering that the line will only run through International District before turning east.
Modification file in ST’s latest rail GTFS package states:
Below is a list of the changes included in the SC-Fall-2025.4 release of Sound Transit GTFS data.
Schedule Changes
* 1 Line:
* corrections to disruption schedule for August 22nd 4 minute headway
In calendar file, I saw noticed that instead of having one weekday schedule for the next 6 month, it has 3 weekday service pattern scheduled:
– LLR_2025-08-25_Jul17_Combined_Summer2025_Pine_SB_Weekday from 8/25 to 8/29
– LLR_2025-09-02_July29_Link_Fall2025_PineSB_Weekday from 9/2 to 9/26
– LLR_2025-09-29_Jul17_Combined_Fall2025v2_Weekday from 9/29 to 3/26 (2026)
The 2 Line through Seattle is now listed on the Google map layer too. It’s just not got any train arrivals listed.
Is this pointing to a Westside 2 Line operating before the cross-lake section opens?
I’ve wondered why ST hadn’t considered having a a Westside 2 line open before the cross lake connection. It could just be offered at crowded times in North Seattle (5 minute trains for just SODO north rather than 8 minute trains to Angle Lake) or for special Stadium events.
It’s a way to save train sets (needed when Federal Way begins simulation) as well as offload the need to run STX 515.
I think they did consider stub trains (Lynnwood to SoDo) when the opened Lynnwood Link but it wasn’t worth it.
When the trains go across the water (but before service) it is likely they will take advantage of the extra trains to support Federal Way. ST has run extra trains for special events and will probably continue to do so. Whether they will regularly have more service on the north end is hard to say. This is all a bit of a moving target at this point.
If they don’t run westside 2 Line before cross-lake testing, isn’t it saving more trainsets?
“If they don’t run westside 2 Line before cross-lake testing, isn’t it saving more trainsets?”
It’s all a matter of the frequency and the number 2 Line trains through Seattle.
The overcrowding Downtown northward is much more overcrowded than the segment south of SODO.
Let’s say that ST needs 16 train sets to run every 10 minutes between trains. To take that to be 8 minutes takes about 20 percent more trains or 20 train sets during peak times.
Now let’s say that ST decides to run 1 Line trains at 10 minutes the entire day, but adds 4 trains calmed the 2 Line to run interspersed during the peak or for special events to offer 5 minute service north of SODO. A round trip for the shorter segment is about half of a full segment. So those 4 extra train sets would be used for 8 runs rather than 4. That would just about assure that the 2 Line could be run continuously during those peak times.
Now let’s say that going further to Federal Way (full simulation beginning in just a few weeks!) will take Link longer so they will need 4 more train sets in top of the 16 before or 20 total. Then the line would also need 5 more to keep the 8 minute frequency that they offer today. The shorter Westside 2 Line would still need just 4 train sets in contrast.
So that’s a savings of a train set from a peak of 25 1 Line trains to a peak of 20 1 Line trains and 4 Westside 2 Line trains.
ST would have the option of running 2 Line trains just a peak times. It could be essentially a peak shuttle scheduled during only the most crowded periods as relievers to overcrowding. Maybe the wait would toggle back and forth from 5 to 10 minutes or there would only be a handful run during peak times rather than through the entire peak. It gives a scheduler flexibility.
If ST had a default Westside 2 Line programmed into their scheduling or maybe merely on hold and waiting to be pushed into service as needed, the dispatcher et al could just press a button to activate a 2 Line run. If not, then it would confuse riders to have some 1 line trains just go as far as SODO while most go to Angle Lake.
On crowded systems like San Francisco or Chicago, I’ve witnessed train dispatchers doing this very thing while I’ve been riding on their systems. This is how mature systems can handle overcrowding. For OCD transit people it can be hard to fathom an asymmetrical schedule but it’s not a foreign concept to address overcrowding.
Think of it as “overcrowding insurance” when needed.
It would confuse people more to have random “2 Line” westside trains than to have some 1 Line trains go to Angle Lake, Stadium, or Federal Way. The only difference is the number, so just keep them number 1 until the actually go to the Eastside.
Well Mike that’s one way to look at it. The important thing is to start training riders to start paying attention to destination signs. And when simulation starts for the cross lake 2 Line in a few months, the trains will probably be dined for 2 Line anyway.
After the Pride parade earlier this summer, I saw a couple short-turn southbound trains saying SODO or Stadium (I forget which) on their destination signs.
“The important thing is to start training riders to start paying attention to destination signs.”
You’re worried about a non-problem. Link already has short trains with short destination signs sometimes. It’s common around the world, especially peak hours. If somebody’s going to the airport and the train terminates at Stadium, they can get off and get on the next train. That will probably make them notice destination signs more. The biggest deal will be when 2 Line trains start going to Redmond and it will make a difference whether you’re on the right train to Rainier Valley. Let’s wait until there are actual 2 Line trains rather than pretend-practicing for months. The 2 Line testing will have to say 2 because that’s part of the testing, but before that we don’t need short 1 Line trains numbered as 2 as if they’re going to Redmond.
The biggest problem I’ve seen was that time on the platform at Westlake, where a group of three people asked me which platform went to the airport. I said this one, you’re in the right place. They still weren’t fully reassured and wondered where Lynnwood was. I said Lynnwood is fifteen miles north of Seattle, and then said Angle Lake is the next station after the airport. That reassured them. So whether it said Angle Lake or Stadium or Downtown Redmond wouldn’t have made a difference; what they were looking for was a sign saying airport.
“The biggest problem I’ve seen was that time on the platform at Westlake, where a group of three people asked me which platform went to the airport. ”
In Atlanta, they just put airport sign at every southbound platform along Red/Gold Line. This helps a lot when you have a line where the airport is not the terminus station although airport is the terminal station in Atlanta’s case. But they do this anyway because airport is such a important ridership generator for the system.
I don’t know how much to read into the exact details of this map (considering that it shows an entire island that doesn’t exist), but it’s interesting that it doesn’t show the “E” route following Westlake Ave (or any similar street) much past Denny, instead taking turns on the “grid” streets.
It’s interesting to me, at least, because I support ripping out every trace of Westlake Avenue inbound of 7th (and hopefully shrinking it outbound of 7th), and I always thought it must have been a pretty old street following a direct rail route in from Lake Union. I wonder how old it is, really…
Yeah, there’s a signature indicating that the map was drawn in 1968. Chances are someone at the city drew this one up by researching materials, overlaying the lines on a base map traced using a light table.
Update: Harry Foesig was apparently a 1960s trolley historian, and he drew the maps for several legacy systems:
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/harry-foesig/
Funny that there are lines going up Madison and James St whereas Sound Transit said that streetcars to First Hill were implausible due to the steep grade. I wonder what the grade was like in the 1896 or if streetcars travelled at a walking-pace up these hills…
I think the Madison and James street lines were electric cable cars. There were many cable cars back then with short runs climbing the hills.
They were cable cars like in San Francisco. They can somehow climb steep hills as well as trolleybuses can. When Seattle decommissioned its streetcars, it sold the cable cars to San Francisco. Another route was up to the Queen Anne counterbalance at QA & Galer Street. That’s not on this map, and Highland Drive is a shop short of it, and I thought it ran on Queen Anne Ave N not 2nd Ave N, so it may have been built after this map’s era.
2nd Ave N wouldn’t work now because Seattle Center is in the way and the street is narrow. But maybe there was an older larger street then.
My grandmother whom I visited in elementary school lived in a cottage in Lakewood with a SW 111th Street address. Today the cottage is replaced by a Clover Park High School parking lot and 111th street doesn’t exist; the main street is 112th now. So something like that may have happened to 2nd Ave N. And we don’t know what Queen Anne Ave N was like then or whether it existed.
To quote Wikipedia:
The portion of Queen Anne Avenue North and the hill itself on which the cable car counterweight system ran are also known locally as the Counterbalance.
It replaced a cable car and ran from 1901 to 1940 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Anne_Counterbalance) so it would have been five years after the map.
Some good info and map here on the streetcar routes & Counterbalance on Queen Anne Hill: https://www.qahistory.org/articles/counterbalance-streetcars
I lived on Q Anne and spent a lot of time (probably while waiting for the 2 to never show up lol) wondering about the old ways of getting up & down that hill. It’s cool other people think about it too!
@KinesthesiaAmnesia — Great link. The Wikipedia article links to the article but the URL was out of date. I just updated it.
According to the map key, lines N O P and Q are cable railways.
Generally, the cable cars predated the electric street railways, but came after the horsecars. Even on flat sections, they were a good way to go if you wanted something a bit faster or larger than could be pulled by a horse, and your track couldn’t support a steam powered street railway.
Once electric power arrived, the economies of all that changed and cable cars were only reserved for steep hills. Electric power was much cheaper than steam power, and so the steam powered street railways quickly converted to electric power too, though those were longer than the horsecar lines so they took longer to convert.
In Portland, the last horsecar line was converted to electric power in 1896. The last steam powered street railway here was the line to Saint Johns, with the conversion being completed sometime around 1902-1903.
I would expect Seattle went through a similar set of transitions as other places. It’s highly likely everything on this map was electrified by 1896. Electric lines were very popular, and electric equipment wasn’t always immediately available as lines were converted across the county. So, a few of these lines might not have been electrified yet.
When the James Street cable was first constructed, the Union Trunk Line planned to tow electric trolleys up the hill to the Broadway/James intersection, but it proved impracticable. The Union Trunk Line routes included going north on Broadway, east toward Madrona, east and south to “Rainier Heights”, and south to Beacon Hill–that last one was supplanted after the Jackson regrade. Note also, the at the time of the map, the Yesler cable also ran on Jackson. The “K” refers to the Rainier valley company’s original route into downtown Seattle employing Seattle’s first counterbalance on Washington Street–later abandoned after the Jackson and Dearborn regrades.
The population of the City of Seattle almost doubled between 1990 and 1900. Then by 1910 it grew again, more than tripling from 1900!
That makes this 1896 map a “work in progress”. It’s a snapshot of what existed at a specific time of crazy growth.
The map diagram doesn’t make it clear how many of these routes were cable-pulled streetcars but the legend does. That appears to be Routes N, O, P and Q at the very least. Are there others?
Lots of interesting things in the map. What do you think Columbus Ave and Hunnewell Ave in the northeast are now? Could Hunnewell Ave be Ravenna Blvd?
Columbus Ave, Madison Ave (not Street), and the East Waterway sound like New York-inspired names.
The L line on 9th Ave S in SODO is where I-5 is now. The neighborhood must have been quite different then. Since we know it was an industrial district in the 1960s when I-5 was built, it may have had factories then like Old Rainier Brewery one, which looks like something out of the 19th century. Buildings smaller and more walkable than the later ones. Although, was SODO drained that early?
Also interesting that the city ends at Charlestown Street. That’s just south of Spokane Street.
West Seattle has a disconnected cable car serving just the Admiral District. One of the streets is Vashon Ave. Since Vashon Island would be barely significant then, the street must be named after James Vashon.
The New York inspired naming was a real big deal! Like the Brooklyn neighborhood in what most folks would now call the U District.
More info here on the University Line streetcar and development of the Brooklyn neighborhood: https://lib.uw.edu/specialcollections/collections/exhibits/site/udistrict/
Using King County’s iMap (https://gismaps.kingcounty.gov/imap/) to explore around Ravenna Park, there appears to be a former right of way extending northeast from Cowen Place, which correlate with a rail line shown on the historic topographic map from 1894 (https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/topomapexplorer/index.html#maps=&loc=-122.31,47.67&LoD=15.07). My guess is that “Columbus” became University, and Hunnewell was largely removed when Ravenna Park was established.
> Buildings smaller and more walkable than the later ones. Although, was SODO drained that early?
That line would have run at the foot of the western bluff of Beacon Hill, built on timber piles driven into the tideflats, connecting Seattle with “South Seattle” aka Georgetown. I am aware of historical maps showing the development of SODO but generally, it wasn’t filled until the 1910s-1930s. The soil came from the various regrading efforts of that time.
Total shitshow on 3rd tonight since 3rd is closed for construction at Pike. 1 hour+ delays going northbound.
I’m fascinated by the Mount Vernon-to-Bellingham line from the 1910s that was supposed to connect to the Everett-Seattle Interurban, but never did. Great War and the rise of car culture did that plan in. My great-grandma’s brothers & sisters lived at different stops along the line from Chuckanut to Mt Vernon. There was even a short sideline to Sedro Wooley and its farms. Years later they would tell me fun stories about riding it all over Skagit area. It’s weird to think about how my great-grands maybe had more connectivity via public transit 100+ years ago than I do now!
https://www.historylink.org/File/10904
Some Interurban service back then were crazy.
Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad once had service from Milwaukee to Chicago Loop. Too bad almost none of them survived.
A lot of Interurban rails went out of business even before the rise of private automobile. One theory was that the Interurban rail expansion and operation were heavily subsidized by suburban land development. The fare revenue couldn’t even support the daily operation. Once all the lands along the line were sold, it became infeasible to operate those lines. When car-ownership rose post-war, it accelerated the process.
Fares were heavily regulated, which limited income. Eg: Long Island Rail Road wasn’t allowed to change their fares between 1918 and 1945.
Part of the trust busting movement 100 years ago also required power companies and electric railways to separate their operations. With the railways no longer able to obtain power at cost or have line crews maintain both trolley wire and transmission lines, a lot of stuff got less economical.
Seattle light rail trains could start crossing Lake Washington in late April — but it’s unlikely: https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-light-rail-trains-could-start-crossing-lake-washington-in-late-april-but-it-s-unlikely
April is the most conservative estimate, and the date they’re required to open by for federal grant money. There’s a chance (who knows how good) that it might open early. I’m hopeful that at least some glitches have already been worked out with the starter line.
The progress report mentioned in the article is available online.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/System-Expansion-Monthly-Status-Report-June-2025.pdf
It appears that ST submitted a “Recovery Plan” to FTA listing May 18, 2026 as the latest opening date in the East Link TIFIA loan part of the report.
Given the recent repeated opening day changes (just in the past several weeks it’s gone from Late 2025 to January 2026 and now in this report April 2026), the opening date seems to remain anyone’s guess.
I remain fearful that it can’t open at all. It seems odd to me that East Link across the lake is now delayed almost a full three years, yet ST announces new delay causes that weren’t proactively addressed during the past few years of delay.
I’ll also add that construction began in April 2016. It will be a full 10 years if this date is kept (and originally it was set to be 7 years). Yet ST still officially promises to build West Seattle Link — with a deep station vault on Alaska Street and a brand new high bridge likely needing new footings and foreign steel — in just 5.5 years of construction. Yeah right.
“ I remain fearful that it can’t open at all.”
I was deceived by the title of this NPR piece. It turns out it is based on the status report someone had shared here weeks ago.
Regarding the forecast opening date, I remember somewhere in the progress report stated that there maybe some opportunities to improve this forecast in July. I guess we will find out in July status report.
“The Federal Way extension from Angle Lake is set to open December 13.”
There you go: there’s the date in December.
I think it is premature for this article to call that out as the opening date.
It is also from the forecast and it comes with 300+ days of float. June status report says FWLE was 97% completed while ELE is 99+% completed.
KUOW fact-checks its stories so it must be based on an ST source. The episode also said the 2 Line target date has been moved to April; the reports a few weeks ago were that the official date was still January but that ST committees were evaluating postponing it. All these dates are not set in stone, but it’s useful to know what ST’s planning target is. We know ST may not be able to deliver by that date and ST may postpone the target date further because it has happened several times. Still, it’s good to know that Federal Way Link might open December 13. That allows passengers to make tentative plans such as deciding whether they’re comfortable with moving to Federal Way this year.
Notably, the prior month’s (May’s) progress report said May 14, 2026 as the Federal Way Link extension opening date.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/System-Expansion-Monthly-Status-Report-May-2025.pdf
While it could possibly move again, the date is now just four months away (rather than nine months from today). There are lots of planning and coordination needed to start now to prepare for opening day — not just by ST but also the other transit operators and the cities too (Kent and Federal Way). That includes the typical celebrations and opening day staffing assignments — on top of changes to bus schedules, signage, web page information and other things to inform the public about the new service. So I think the date is mostly firm for practical reasons.
Being in the middle of the holiday shopping season and Seahawks football season will give the opening day a different flavor than the recent ones have had. We haven’t had a November or December Link extension opening since 2009 with SeaTac Station.
The other day, I was downtown and noticed a bus stop on 4th Ave. with a huge sign that used to serve over a dozen routes. Today, only the 545 remains. This begs the question that, when the East Link restructure completes, what happens to bus service on 4th Ave.? And, if it ends, what happens to the bus lane?
Probably nothing. Another outcome of Metro’s unnecessary war on suburb one seat commuter buses.
Where is the stop you are talking about? The 101, 102 and 150 run on 4th. Like the 545 they all turn on Olive. It is possible they shifted the bus stops a bit. From what I can tell, the only bus that continues on 4th is the 554. It has a stop at 4th & Lenora before ending at 6th & Blanchard. My guess is in the short term they will just close the stop. In the long run they may have other buses lay over there. Likewise they may juggle things around using 4th. One of the ideas is to have 3rd and 4th be transit couplets instead of having all the buses run on 3rd. I can see why having two contraflow lanes each direction would be better but the transit mall on Third seems to be working really well now. I wouldn’t mess with it, and instead just keep adding bus lanes to the north.
Yeah I also wonder which stop is that. I don’t think there is a stop on 4th Ave that is only served by 545 currently. 4th Ave BAT lane is peak only and there will still be other express routes using them after full east link restructure is executed.