Brightly painted streetcars are running up and down Seattle’s First Hill. Though they aren’t carrying any passengers yet, it’s an indication that the next trolley line is close to going live.
Stepping onto a shiny new streetcar, it’s hard to believe that in the late 1930s Seattle scrapped an entire trolley system. People called it tired and decrepit; plus, it was in bankruptcy.
“As you know, our transportation system, for a number of years, has been in very bad shape,” says former mayor, Alfred Langley.
As mayor at the time, Langley accepted a federal bailout. And the city moved on to oil-fueled buses, considered the future of transportation. Fast forward to today in Pioneer Square.
“It almost feels more glamourous to be on a streetcar,” says Ryan Miller who’s taking a tour of a new trolley.
He lives on Capitol Hill and works in Pioneer Square – those are the start and end points for the new First Hill Line. He likes the predictability of a rail train over a bus.
?
“Like, if you’re a business owner along the line, it makes it a lot easier to know that there’s going to be tracks and there’s going to be transit here day in and day out, whereas a bus route – that can change any time, any day,” said Miller.
Predictability and glamour — but there’s a bit of low tech too. The streetcar operator, Katherine Batey shows me how with a tap of her foot, she keeps the train from slipping on wet tracks.
“And normally when you start sliding, it’ll be the beginning of rain, you just hit your thing, dump a little sand, and then off you go,” she said.
For now streetcars seem to fit specific needs for specific riders. Batey says when all the modes of transportation interact, it should be a fine-tuned machine.
“There’s streetcar people and there’s bus people and there’s bike people and there’s car people. And so I think that you need to have an assortment to fulfill all those needs. I think it’ll be a beautiful, beautiful dance,” she said.
The city says the next streetcar line would run through the city center to link up the First Hill trolley with the South Lake Union Streetcar. That all depends on a bid for federal grant money. Officials hope to hear back on the federal grant in early 2016.
