More SLUTs for City Streets

According to an article today's PI, it looks as if the city will be spending some money to study the possibility of adding more streetcars to the city's streets. The Transportation Committee passed a bill approving a feasibility study for six lines yesterday.

The study, as approved by the committee, would estimate construction costs per mile and yearly operation and maintenance costs for the six lines. Among other issues, it would identify detailed street corridors, issues with construction and utility location, how the lines would fit into Metro's bus routes, estimate the number of riders and provide ways to finance the lines, which are costlier than buses.

Predictably, some members of the Council (Licata and McIver), which will most likely give the green light to the study next week, are worried that funding new streetcars will take money away from buses. While we don't want to lose buses before there is a truly viable alternative (like light rail or a working streetcar system on grade-separated track), we also don't want our city's dependence on buses to continue any longer than it has to. If you ask us, take money from buses if it means giving us real rapid transit (we're not convinced that SLUTs are real rapid transit).

The six lines are all pretty compelling to us since they serve areas that we think need more rapid transit though the Seattle Transit Blog points out some points that need to be considered, especially on the Ballard line. They also make the point that our friend who actually works in SLU makes all the time: He never rides the thing because spending $3 to go to Whole Foods for lunch is pointless, but if the SLUT worked the U-District, he'd ride the bus to that transit hub and then ride the SLUT to work.

Two last notes: First, we know that if the city expands the use of streetcars, they won't all be SLUTs, but we couldn't resist that headline. Second, there's a video (choose the one dated 2/5/2008) of yesterday's hearing on the Seattle Channel's site that's worth watching for six minutes to see the crazy old man's testimony.

Thanks for the image of the map Seattle Transit Blog!