A Magic Carpet Ride Free Zone

The other day, Seattlest Abbey found a gem in the Seattle Municipal Archives' photo pool. When we saw that, we knew it wasn't just a dusty old transit study from which nothing came. Our friends at HistoryLink tell us:

From the start, the new agency adopted innovative approaches to bus transportation. One of the first, introduced in 1973 at the request of Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman (b. 1935), was the downtown Seattle Ride Free Area (originally dubbed the "Magic Carpet" zone).

A month after the Magic Carpet zone debuted, OPEC countries imposed an oil embargo. The resulting gas shortages and price increases boosted bus ridership, sending Metro in search of new buses wherever they could be found....

In addition to flexible scheduling, Metro Transit introduced buses that were literally flexible, becoming the first American transit agency to order articulated (bending) buses. The first European-style articulated buses, which reduced costs by carrying more passengers per trip, arrived in 1978.

What magical, heady days for Metro, strikes notwithstanding! Some time ago, we were at a thrift store, sifting through a pile of old maps when we came upon this Metro Transit map, dated November 1973. Indeed, the Magic Carpet Zone was no figment of some transit planner's imagination:

One more map after the jump.