Bring Back the Streetcar NOW
This would be an excellent time for the new McGinn administration to bring back the George Benson Streetcar. It would be a valuable transit addition in a neighborhood that keeps growing and a clear signal that McGinn actually intends to put his money where his mouth has been.
What is needed is a streetcar barn, and that could be a temporary structure in a Pioneer Square neighborhood that is, by all accounts, in a mild slump at the present. It’s true that in the future the rebuilding of the seawall will interrupt the present streetcar line, but there’s no sense in just letting the line lay dormant until that distant day.
Certainly some repairs to the track and wire must be needed after several years of idleness, but this cost would be trivial compared with the cost of building a new streetcar line. It would be a bold, much welcomed, and still economical way of McGinn staking claim to the waterfront for the public and making it work for the people who are there already.
If you vote in Seattle, you should approach, not only McGinn, but also City Council members, to remind them that 95% of the line is still there, ready to be used.
In the past, to be sure, I have ruminated on what a line stretching north to Interbay would look like, and whether the waterfront were the best location for the historical streetcar. At the present time, though, it seems very clear that bringing back the George Benson Streetcar before the seawall construction begins is a good choice.
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I’ve always believed Grace Crunican intended to undermine the reinstallation. Several depictions of streetcar lines proposed running in 4-lane Alaskan Way, but the route that remained on SDOT paper was through the middle of the Wide Plaza. Once it was finally pointed out that this route is dangerous to pedestrians, the Waterfront Streetcar line was dropped entirely and replaced with the questionable 1st Ave line.
It gets worse. The 4-lane Alaskan Way is likewise flawed. There are bike lanes at curbside, which is a step down from the existing separated path, but I believe a 6-lane Alaskan Way is already on the drawing board awaiting some crucial point in the process where SDOT can claim it’s the only option. And, a 6-lane Alaskan Way has the same flaw as the 4-lane version – the need to separate thru-traffic from motorists looking to park – neither accomplishes this goal. Western Ave is just not enough.
Before Crunican arrived, there was a design that incorporated a 2-lane frontage road on the eastside. It cut back on the Wide Plaza, but more than enough plaza space remains. A cross-section view shows how the existing ’streetcar/bike/ped island’ could be restored admirably.
The Seattle Circulator Plan by Art Lewellan
(I tried to make a link work, but I’m not sure it did. On the SeattleTransit blog, there’s one string headed with a picture of a trolleybus beside a giant car. Halfway down, Oran Viriyincy posted the link on that string. There’s a cross-sectional view of this Alaskan Way with the streetcar line.)
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