If you read this article, you'll be smarter than Wikipedia. more ›

In 1943, Seattle Transit ripped up the tracks on Third Avenue downtown. Over the years we've ripped down many of the buildings, too, but you can still find the Mann, Vance, and Securities buildings at least. more ›

Crusty Capitol Hill month continues with a streetcar vignette. Capitol Hill lost streetcar service in September 1940. More than 70 years later, Sound Transit approved the budget last week to make a new streetcar linking light rail with the International District Station. The big news is that the City Council is looking to extend the streetcar and link it to the South Lake Union line. Here's some historic context. Maybe it will convince them to repeat history. more ›

The Seattle City Council gave the green light for a new streetcar line. more ›

One thing the loop does is remove the need for decision about 12th or Broadway, which, it being Seattle, could keep us at the consensus table for the next quarter of a century. Also, as we understand it, it takes up less space to run the streetcar one way down a street, and it pencils out (construction-wise) as cheaper to do. more ›

Recently, while reading the current issue of The New Republic, we came across an interesting article on the current Boston mayoral race, pitting the four-term incumbent, malapropism-prone, Democratic machine stalwart Tom "Mayor Mumbles" Menino against upstart candidate-of-change and current city councilor-at-large Sam Yoon. This would be of little local interest if it weren't for the following tidbit: more ›

Chamber music. Even the name loses you, doesn't it? Music for chambers? Why, it makes no sense! That said, Seattle is rich in terrific musicians who like to play music in small groups. The naming problem isn't really their fault, but it's hard to get people to try them out in a concert hall. Even classical music lovers feel like they get more music, on a per musician basis, at a symphony performance. It's simple economics. more ›

As we were delivering people to the airport on Monday morning--by the power of Subaru!--one of our passengers glanced up at the light rail line under construction and said, "This ought to be the last winter you have to shuttle people to the airport." Which we were pleased about. But then we got to thinking. more ›

• We knew we'd heard that name somewhere--Steve Almond, who wrote a lovely innocuous column for Martha Stewart Living about Christmas candy, is familiar to us through his at-times NSFW short story collections. Matthew at Roots & Grubs points out that he, too, can write about Christmas candy, and his bibliography is 99% safe and Martha-approved.
• West Seattle Blog breaks out the snow talk! They're pointing everyone towards a community Christmas tree lighting, and as is the usual, WSB also has a scoop: the weatherman has a blog.
• The school closure meetings have everyone in a tizzy about their neighborhood schools. Capitol Hill Seattle reports with relief on their beloved Lowell, which was removed from the closure list, and the commenters react with skepticism and challenging questions (like, what happened to all the rhetoric about Lowell's building falling apart?).

Jan Drago, chair of the Seattle city council's transportation committee, oversaw a 4-2 committtee vote yesterday that came down in favor of more streetcars, a whopping $600 million network of them. Licata and McIver voted nay. Now we wait to see if the full council will contract streetcar fever. The proposed First Hill line would run from Capitol Hill to the ID, while the Central line would fill in for the old waterfront streetcar, running from Seattle Center to King Street Station. The Fremont-Ballard and U-District lines would meet up with the SLUT. This is all well and good, but where's our cable cars running up James, Denny, and Queen Anne Hill? Cable cars or gondolas, we're open to discussion. more ›

• Belltown says thanks but no thanks to streetcars.
• The Stranger has an amateur porn contest, while according to the Central District News, the Central Cinema has an amateur horror movie contest.
• Now that the remnants of Nickelsville has moved to Discovery Park, the Magnolia Voice is your source for all things Nickelsville.

While we've been admittedly hard on the South Lake Union street car, we are actually a fan of the idea of street cars in Seattle. With the way traffic is in Seattle today and the Sisyphean task our current public transit system faces daily, we're pretty much a fan of any and all public transportation ideas for Seattle. So we were pleased to read that the city will be holding four public meetings in the coming weeks on the potential for new street car routes in town. more ›

on the City Council's discussions for SLUT expansion leaves us just a little ticked. After characterizing service expansion as "daydreams," Curl gives plenty of space to skeptics like Tom Rasmussen, who says: "Streetcars are nice; I like riding them. But we don't have a streetcar system, we have a bus system." more ›

The South Lake Union Trolley has struck again! Literally. Yesterday, the trolley struck its fourth car since its December debut. That averages an accident every month of the S.L.U.T.'s short existence, although this is the second accident we've reported in April. Yesterday's accident occurred when a car leaving the Center for Wooden Boats' parking lot hit the streetcar's right front bumper. No one was hurt in the accident. The collision shut down the streetcar for about half an hour, but then it returned to service. more ›

While the printed media may be calling it the "Seattle streetcar" now, it will always be the S.L.U.T. to us. Yesterday afternoon one of the South Lake Union Trolleys struck a parked truck its backend was hanging over the streetcar's path. While the accident did not seriously damage either the streetcar or the parked truck, it did shut down service for 25 minutes, and the streetcar has been removed from service for minor repairs. No one was injured in the accident. more ›

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. more ›