At last night's meeting on the First Hill Streetcar, the Seattle Department of Transportation released cost estimates for five of the alignments under consideration. Here's a chart (click to enlarge):
- Seattle Department of Transportation
(The chart and more on funding info in this .pdf. )
The results are pretty damning for the First Hill route (which I've been against for a while), which SDOT gives a red categorization to indicate they are "poor." While having slightly higher ridership potential (and a slightly greater potential for added density), the First Hill alignment past hospitals would have the longest travel times, highest operating cost, worst bicycle integration, and require the most revisions to traffic.
The two-way Broadway alignments is, by far, the cheapest (and is generally looking pretty good), but the 12th Avenue Couplet isn't too far off from the two-way Broadway with the park loop—and would cover more area.
