The South Lake Union Streetcar broke down Friday, August 9, and nobody even noticed until King County Metro and SDOT sent out a press release about it the next Monday. Like, I searched through social media posts and could not find a single person mentioning issues riding the streetcar line the entire weekend that it was out of operation. Perhaps even more damning for the line is that Metro and SDOT are not even running any kind of replacement service while the streetcar is out of commission, noting that riders are served by existing service on Routes 40, 70 and RapidRide C.
The thing that baffles me about this line is that people keep acting like the city needs to decide what to do with it when Seattle already made this decision nine years ago. The RapidRide J project was initially proposed as an extension of the streetcar from its odd terminus in the middle of Fairview Ave N north to Roosevelt Station, but Seattle decided in 2015 to make the project a bus line instead. The ongoing Route 40 Transit-Plus project was also once vaguely envisioned as a streetcar line (complete with a new Ship Canal crossing), but is now a set of bus reliability improvements. The time to fight for the streetcar happened a decade ago, and the streetcar lost.
Around the same time, SDOT made a smart decision to add transit-only lanes to Westlake Ave so Metro could extend the RapidRide C line through South Lake Union along much of the streetcar route. It was an effective and low-cost way to dramatically improve transit service in the neighborhood, but it also made the streetcar even less necessary. Many riders using the shared bus and streetcar stops just hop on whichever comes first because level of service matters far more than what kind of wheels the transit vehicle has.
These days, the SLU Streetcar carries an average of 494 weekday trips, the Seattle Times reported. It costs $4.6 million per year to operate, though advertising helps offset some of that. That operating cost would be fine if the ridership were strong because transit shouldn’t be expected to make a profit. But 494 weekday rides does not justify that level of ongoing investment. For contrast, the First Hill Streetcar carries a healthier 3,598 trips on an average weekday, though it also has higher annual operating costs. The First Hill line seems to be filling an actual transportation need while the SLU line does not.
Keeping the SLU line alive is a classic case of Seattle indecision. It’s connected to the city’s years of indecision about the downtown streetcar project, which remains stalled due to a $93 million budget gap. Worse, indecision like this can be very damaging to a community because streetcar supporters have reason to keep fighting for it so long as it seems that there’s still a chance. I don’t blame them because the vision of a European-style network of streetcars is genuinely appealing and seems like a vision worth fighting for. But even if the city built the downtown streetcar, there are no plans whatsoever to expand the network any further. We’d still just have one oddly-shaped line for the foreseeable future. The 20-year Seattle Transportation Plan and 8-year levy proposal does not include any additional streetcars. (CORRECTION: As David commented, I missed that the STP does include streetcar extensions north and south on 1st Ave beyond the current design.) These are decisions Seattle has already made.
The streetcar needs to go big or go home, and Seattle has firmly decided not to go big.
Shutting the line down is not an easy decision. There will be costs associated with shuttering it, especially if they do so responsibly by removing or filling in the unused tracks so they do not injure bike and scooter riders. It would also be a shame if the mayor and council used the budget savings to plug the general budget gap rather than investing it in other transit improvements or plans. When the mayor decided to shut down Pronto Cycle Share, the city directed the bike share expansion budget to go to bike lanes on 4th Ave and Pike and Pine Streets downtown instead. Those investments softened the blow of losing our public bike share system, which coincidentally was also a victim of Seattle indecision. Maybe the SLU Streetcar funds could go to exciting projects to speed up the Route 8 bus or early planning for Seattle-led light rail extensions, laying the groundwork for investments the city can feature in the next Seattle Transportation Benefits District vote due in 2026. I don’t know, I’m sure transit planners and advocates have ideas here. There needs to be some kind of organized effort to create a positive exit plan for the funds because this latest shutdown has made the SLU Streetcar an even bigger target for the City Council as they head into what will likely be a very tough budget season.
“Given the low ridership numbers of the South Lake Union line, does it make sense to continue that investment?” Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka said to the Seattle Times last week. “I don’t have a strong answer yet, but I will definitively be scrutinizing that.”
Perhaps a private company would want to buy the SLU streetcar. Councilmember Saka suggested a “public-private partnership” as a possible way forward. A private company already owns and operates the Seattle Monorail, so maybe there’s a future where something similar happens with the streetcar. Amazon has invested in the streetcar line in the past. Do they like it enough to buy it? Do they want to invest in the downtown extension? Do we as a city even want this level of private transit ownership?
My support for the streetcars evaporated after Daniel Ahrendt was horribly injured and Desiree McCloud died in separate crashes on the First Hill Streetcar tracks. The city has made some bikeway improvements since to mitigate some of the dangers, but especially on Jackson Street many issues remain. The design plans for the streetcar tracks on both First Avenue and Stewart Street are also insufficient from a bike safety standpoint. I wrote extensively about what it would take to make the plans safe, and the project team did not address the issues. I won’t be sad when the city finally declares the project to be dead.
I know reading this is probably a bummer for some of you. It’s a divisive issue among folks who should otherwise be united in the fight for walking, biking and transit. If the SLU Streetcar and downtown plans die as seems likely, I hope streetcar supporters out there can find a positive way to move forward and continue their dedication to advocating for better transit in our city.
Comments
25 responses to “Seattle decided 9 years ago to kill the SLU Streetcar”
I think it makes sense not to throw good money after bad. The (lack of) ridership speaks for itself. And there are two big opportunities to improve non-car transportation ASAP by closing the SLU streetcar:
1. Fill in the tracks to reopen SLU for bikers and enable a grid of bike lanes. SLU is one of precious few dense neighborhoods that’s flat enough for non-electric bikes to comfortably navigate, and right now the tracks ruin several of the primary flat routes by presenting a potentially lethal hazard to bike riders. Westlake and Terry (the two flat N-S routes) have tracks for several blocks; Harrison and Thomas (two major E-W routes) have at least some tracks. Altogether it forces bikes to skirt the neighborhood or hop on sidewalks to reach destinations in there. I don’t even work in the core SLU grid but I commute past it on my bike and often visit friends or lunch places in there, and every time I end up dodging streetcar tracks.
2. Give the streetcar ROW along Valley to buses! The most important thing for transit riders in SLU is separation from bad traffic jams. Right now, the C Line (and 40) do benefit from transit-only lanes along Westlake, but the C then gets stuck in absolutely insane traffic jams along Valley (stemming from the Valley/Fairview intersection being a perpetual cluster, thanks to cars queueing toward Fairview in the morning or toward Mercer/I-5 in the afternoon). It fouls up reliability for the whole C Line. Perversely, while thousands of daily riders wonder why their C coach is delayed yet again, the empty trolleys are cruising through the Valley/Fairview intersection on dedicated ROW (and a long phase of the traffic light cycle, further snarling the traffic C coaches are currently stuck in). Repurpose the tracks there into bus lanes, to give the ROW and traffic light phase to a mass transit line that is actually ridden by thousand of commuters.
I agree with both points. With the streetcar tracks gone from Terry it could become a first-class biking path, with bike lanes on both sides. It is a minor north-south street as far as car traffic goes, and is thus well suited for this. Right now Terry ends abruptly at Denny. Pedestrians can cross, but cars can’t (https://maps.app.goo.gl/2cKqdACri2fD9Uqj7). Obviously bikes can cross as well, but it is awkward (as they have to use the crosswalk). With a little bit of work bikes could cross there and bike lanes could continue on the other side, all the way to Olive.
Here is a variation on your second idea:
Pave over the streetcar tracks and move the bike lanes there. That would connect better to the bike lanes on Fairview (that will be improved with the RapidRide J project). The bike lanes along Fairview will be on the waterfront side of the road (both directions). You can see that in the slide: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/RapidRide/Roosevelt/Ad_Ready_Fairview_Downtown_pg_2R.pdf (the slide is hard to read as it is not oriented with north on top — note the arrow in the legend). With the streetcar gone, the bike path could just continue around the lake without crossing Valley. This means that access to Terry would be much better from Eastlake or Westlake.
Westbound Roy would connect to the path quite easily (and better than it does today). It would basically just parallel the crosswalk (to the other side of the lamppost in this picture: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TGtgwQbwjGruUjUn9). Those coming from Roy would go diagonally (as with 9th) or make a two step crossing (like they do today).
With the bike lanes moved north of Valley, we can add bus lanes to Valley. This would be much better for those biking and much better for transit.
Oh wow I hadn’t seen this plan for Fairview. That will be a big improvement and would be great if they could connect it to new bike lanes over the current SLU trolley ROW along Valley.
Right now Valley is a weird gap for riders around the lake. Bicyclists can either squeeze onto the narrow sidewalks past the center for wooden boats or go out of their way to use cramped door zone lanes on Valley alongside, that connect to the terrifying stroad of Fairview.
I’ve taken the SLU Streetcar only a couple times from Westlake to Lake Union Park or Fred Hutch (the end of the line), each time I forget until halfway through the ride that the bus is actually much faster. (I’ve even *walked* from Lake Union Park back downtown in the summer and found it was faster.) I would be interested to see if the issues with bikes/scooters on that line – and the First Hill Streetcar – are seen on the T Line (Sound Transit-run) in Tacoma, since I believe it’s the same equipment. (I haven’t heard of any, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.)
Sorry Tom, but you’re factually incorrect on at least one issue here: the Seattle Transportation Plan does in fact call for further extensions of the Streetcar. Beyond the CCC, the STP calls for a northern extension through Belltown to the future Seattle Center Link Station, and a southerly extension to serve the stadia.
In the context of a larger network with a multitude of route options, the Westlake streetcar does serve a meaningful purpose.
You’re right, I missed the plan to extend the 1st Ave streetcar north and south. I’ll update the post.
“It’s a divisive issue among folks”?
I actually don’t know anyone who has been for the SLU Streetcar in the past 5 years.
Don’t just remove the streetcar. Remove Westlake Ave entirely (err… mostly-entirely) from Stewart all the way to Blanchard! Get rid of all the excessively large intersections and excessively long signal cycles along its length! Make the street grid in this part of town a lot less unpleasant to walk!
Could it really be done? Yes — here are all the blocks:
– Stewart to 6th. Gotta preserve one-way southbound right-in/right-out access for the Westin driveway. Fine. Curbing off the rest of the space and enlarging the little square there would be a little improvement.
– 6th to Virginia. There’s essentially no direct access to anything here except via a sidewalk that could be extended a couple feet down from Virginia. Other than that… do literally anything with the space that allows the intersections to be closed.
– Virginia to 7th. Nothing there to access, just connect the little triangle up to the rest of the sidewalks.
– 7th to Lenora/8th, Lenora/8th to Blanchard/9th: there are several businesses here… these blocks could each be pedestrian arcades. Removing the through-access would make all the intersections so much smaller and better. For all those typical Seattle types that want to keep cars in Pike Place forever and think we’re all helpless to go anywhere if we can’t take a cab to the front door, I guess you could try to preserve that kind of car access without losing all of the benefits.
Buses would get take 9th to Lenora inbound I guess, or Blanchard could get a contraflow bus lane for a couple blocks.
The streetcar was never designed to solve people’s transportation problems and notions to “extend” it required building so much anew that they got very little out of the existing stuff. If that ain’t happening… there’s not much of a reason to keep any of this, Westlake Ave. included.
Yes, this. Make this section of Westlake pedestrian and bike only. That could be a very good bike route, especially if improvements were made in some of the connecting sections. It would connect to the bike paths on 8th, which connect to the bike paths on Bell (which becomes 9th and connects to the Lake Union bike paths).
I’d rather disallow all the through-movements along Westlake than make the whole thing a ped/bike street. All the surrounding streets would work better for everyone with those intersections removed, but they have to be completely removed.
Maybe at 8th/Lenora you’d do an “all-walk” phase and allow pedestrians to cross diagonally, since the east edge of Westlake goes through the intersection of 8th/Lenora, and since it would be nice if people could walk between the two blocks of Westlake that actually have destinations on them. Other than that… Westlake used to extend all the way to 4th/Pike and we’re better off with a streetscape that barely acknowledges this.
OK, I follow you. So basically get rid of all the crossings that just involve Westlake. From Olive (heading north) those are Stewart (pedestrian only), 6th, Virginia, 7th, and the intersection you mentioned (8th/Lenora). From a pedestrian standpoint this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. You would have to zigzag a bit if you are going diagonally, but it still works (https://maps.app.goo.gl/BoBidR6hx4rwaQbq6).
On the other hand, from a biking standpoint it doesn’t work. At best it might help connect some sections, but that looks like a terrible bike route.
I could see how getting rid of those intersections would help traffic flow, but I could also see how making those intersections pedestrian/bike only could work out just fine. Consider the crossing at Westlake & 6th. Just time it with the signal at 6th & Virginia. This means that if you are heading west on 6th (in a car or on a bike) you see the light for Westlake turn yellow at the same time the light on Virginia turns yellow. It doesn’t slow down traffic — you simply wait at a different intersection. The same thing happens at the next intersection (Westlake & Virginia). That crossing is timed with the signal at 7th & Virginia. This does mean that people biking are very likely to get stuck by a traffic light. That’s life in the big city. But the same is true if there is no crossing. Overall this is much, much better. Being able to travel diagonally (on foot or on a bike) is still a really nice bonus even if the traffic lights aren’t in your favor.
I think the main problem intersection is the one you mentioned. I’m with you. I like the idea of a big “all-walk” phase at 8th & Lenora. But that comes at a pretty big cost when it comes to traffic. Buses on Lenora would be delayed by the extra signal phase. In my opinion it is worth it. One of the things that people often mention about this streetcar is that walking is faster. Making this change would make walking even faster.
But if you are focused on traffic, then you make this crossing two phase as well. If Westlake becomes parkland, then you have a little triangle north of Lenora, and south of 8th (essentially here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q2EyfMW28JoTTXXd7). Now you are back to a two-phase crossing (like the other streets) but at least you keep going diagonally. If you are headed north (on the Westlake pathway) you cross Lenora and very soon after cross 8th.
Overall this is just better. The main problem with Westlake right now is that there are too many cars. By making it easier for cars to get to the heart of downtown, we encourage cars to go to the heart of downtown. This in turn leads to more traffic elsewhere. Simply by keeping the traffic signals the same (or better) and getting rid of cars on Westlake would make the overall traffic situation better.
Like so many Seattle Transportation Dreams sometime in the future someone will look back and wonder what if.
You mean what if we hadn’t of wasted our time on this and instead put the money into improving the buses and bike paths? Yeah, definitely.
Thinking outside the box, what about moving the SLU streetcar down to the waterfront? Olympic Sculpture Park to Pioneer Square could be a great route that people would enjoy riding and there is no transit service there. Alaskan Way has a lot of extra lanes, so there should be space.
That was what the the George Benson streetcars were. I think there is a better case for those streetcars than any other streetcars in Seattle. I wrote about them in a comment here: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/08/14/midweek-roundup-open-thread-62/#comment-938315
It would not be surprising to me that it is simply too late to resurrect them.
The ROW along Alaskan Way is massive, but I agree it’s too late to resurrect streetcars there with how they’ve laid out the new Alaskan Way. The whole road is now more akin to the pickup zone at SeaTac: a mix of tourists and uber and taxi drivers slowly, haltingly lurching in and out of the curb lanes, partially blocking the right lanes, while the traffic lights are the most abysmally synchronized in the city. Streetcars would be getting blocked by cars and red lights constantly.
Even the few concessions to buses are being operated incredibly poorly right now. See, e.g., the left turn that hundreds of daily West Seattle-bound buses struggle to make even in, theoretically, entirely separated ROW from the Columbia Street bus lane to the Alaskan Way bus lane, thanks to blocking cars and the traffic lights giving pedestrians priority the whole light cycle. Meanwhile, left-turning cars headed into the ferry docks from NB Alaskan Way get absolutely endless green arrows, even when no cars are present, blocking the massive crowds of pedestrians trying to get to/from the water taxi dock or the bike path.
The Benson Waterfront streetcar used existing freight railroad tracks. I’m not sure if they were leased (from BNSF) or the city happened to own that section or railway. Nor do I know what it would cost to run them on the tracks now. The project was shutdown when the maintenance barn was demolished to make room for an expansion of the sculpture park. Alternative ideas for a new maintenance facilities were considered, but never implemented. If the First Hill streetcar was extended it wouldn’t need that (since it would just continue to use the existing barn in the CID).
I agree that taking part of the street to run them would be a bad idea.
I like the street car. I have taking it to Lake Union Park several times from Eastlake and enjoy the ride. I was one of the riders that was effected by the breakdown. it will be sad to see it go
Good article. One specific thing worth adding. It is quite possible that getting rid of the South Lake Union Streetcar would provide Seattle with more than enough money to get rid of the tracks and pave the roadway. The streetcars themselves are worth money and the facilities base is worth a lot of money. According to the county assessor the land is worth around $30 million. That will pay for a lot of street repairs.
Yes, mayors Nickels and McGinn had streetcar dreams. Yes, the Murray-SDOT shifted to electric trolleybus BRT, but their dreams were also too costly and did not integrate with Link as well as they should (see the long transfer walks between the J Line and the U District station and that the G Line misses the Capitol Hill station. Within SDOT, there are several work groups; they have different missions and may privately disagree about the allocation of scarce funds and rights of way. The overlaps were supposed to be sorted out in the Seattle Transportation Plan, but I doubt they have.
The chart does not seem to be filled out well.
Yes, streetcar tracks are dangerous to cyclists. So are abandoned tracks such as those on 14th Avenue NW at Leary. Two cyclists died on the FHSC tracks; I have seen many slip and fall on the FHSC tracks. Councilmember O’Brien fell on the SLU tracks.
SDOT would do well to stop placing bike facilities on transit arterials unless it is really necessary. If they do, they should place them on the left side opposite the buses using the right side. There is friction for both modes if they use the same side of the arterial; see Roosevelt Way NE about to be duplicated on 11th/12th avenues NE. Brooklyn Avenue NE would have made a great bike emphasis street. See Vancouver and Victoria B.C. for better modal separation.
All three of the SDOT streetcar projects have been foolish (e.g., SLU, FHSC, and CCC, now CC). They may die of their own fiscal weight. The advantage of a streetcar is the ability for one operator to control multiple cars. Streetcars can have great capacity; see Europe. In Seattle, they are just costlier and slower buses stuck on tracks. See the reliability impacts of taking the SLU line through the Mercer mess or the FHSC line as it deviates via 14th Avenue South. According to the FTA NTD, the operating cost of a Seattle streetcar is about 50 percent more than a Metro bus. see: https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2022/00001.pdf
“That operating cost would be fine if the ridership were strong because transit shouldn’t be expected to make a profit.”
Sadly, this assumption is the norm in Seattle. But it’s false. The SkyTrain network in Vancouver, BC turns a profit. It collects more in fare revenues than it costs to run. That profit can then be used to increase/improve bus service, in addition to charging lower fares than Link and running ~3 minute headways all day, every day. Go to Vancouver and miss a train on purpose. By the time you check an app for the next arrival and look at your surroundings cursorily, the next train is already pulling in–even at 11pm Saturday. What lets SkyTrain turn a profit and run excellent frequency on lower fares is simple and replicable: it has no drivers. The trains are fully automated (which requires fully grade-separated tracks, unlike MLK Way and Bel-Red Road). This remains the exception in North America, but not globally. There’s no reason we can’t or shouldn’t do the same in Seattle.
Mass transit CAN turn a profit while being excellent. I’ve never understood why Seattle activists are so dismissive of fare recovery ratio, but at least to the extent that we want frequent service and high ridership, we should strive to build the most profitable transit we can. In a country with permanently inadequate funding, a region with very finite land, and voters chronically hesitant to raise taxes; we should use the inadequate resources we do have as effectively as possible. Sound Transit has serious problems because its accumulated bad decisions are depressing its fare recovery, which slows system expansion, reduces frequency (and thus capacity), and inflates fares and taxes. There’s no need for that. Seattle is BIGGER than Vancouver. We should demand profitable transit and its resulting frequency, ridership, safety, accelerated system expansion, and reduced fares and taxes. We can’t automate buses, but Vancouver has relied on automated trains since 1986. Why don’t we?
I wasn’t saying that Transit can’t turn a profit, but it provides an important service even on routes that are not profitable. So that shouldn’t be an expectation. For example, Metro’s busiest routes like the 7 or 44 or sone of the RapidRides probably do turn a profit, but longer routes through less-dense parts of the county are also important even though they may never turn a profit.
Right, and this gets to the whole ridership/coverage trade-off (https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html). You can’t expect a bus to Seward Park to turn a profit. It is a coverage route, and it will cost money.
But this isn’t a coverage route. You don’t run streetcars as coverage routes — that makes no sense. They are extremely expensive to build and if you aren’t pulling a profit — or at the very least coming close to breaking even — then you did it wrong. We spent money trying to increase ridership but failed, miserably. This ends up hurting both ridership routes and coverage routes.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. I can’t claim to know what the farebox recovery for a streetcar should be. I’m open to the idea that a streetcar could be worth subsidizing.
“It’s a divisive issue among folks who should otherwise be united in the fight for walking, biking and transit. ”
I think that can be said for the various streetcar projects (and not just this one). It was divisive from the very beginning: https://seattletransitblog.com/2014/07/29/streetcars-a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/. The case for streetcars in Seattle was never strong. Streetcar have their advantages, but the two big ones are capacity and the ability to run on existing tracks. In the case of our streetcars, they have neither. The Benson streetcar *did* run on existing tracks, but none of the other ones did, which makes them especially expensive. They are no bigger than our buses, so they offer no capacity advantage.
Streetcars have their disadvantages as well. One big disadvantage is that they are a hazard to bikes. Another is that they can’t move out of the way of obstacles. It is also extremely expensive to move them. Thus we are pretty much stuck with the terrible routing of these streetcars. Even if they are connected the routing is terrible. We could (and can) do so much better with buses.
I think there are several reasons why people wanted them here, or at the very least were OK with them:
1) Ignorance surrounding streetcars. I doubt most of the supporters (or detractors) can name the advantages and disadvantages of streetcars.
2) Correlation. Amsterdam is often cited as a model for biking (for very good reasons). They have streetcars.
3) Mike McGinn. McGinn was a strong bike advocate (I voted for him) and a strong advocate for streetcars. Folks assumed he had the right idea when it came to transit, but he knew little about transit and didn’t delegate to folks who did. He was just as ignorant of the advantages and disadvantages as anyone else.
This particular streetcar should be removed. If we are going to add service on First Avenue, then we should simply shift buses there. That is much cheaper to implement AND much cheaper to operate. Not only are buses cheaper to run than streetcars, but by shifting a bus from Third to First we basically get service on First Avenue for free.