Yesterday, the Sound Transit Executive Committee recommended a $2 million budget addition to study high-capacity mass transit from downtown to Ballard in 2012, instead of maybe three years from now, as was originally proposed.

This is fantastic news! Regardless of if the full Sound Transit board approves the $2 million Executive Committee recommendation on December 15, millions have already been pledged. Specifically, the City has budgeted an additional $2 million for studying and planning (including $900,000 from a federal transportation planning grant, a $300,000 SDOT match of the federal grant, and $800,000 from the approved 2012 budget).

Next year, Sound Transit would begin studying the feasibility of adding a streetcar line from downtown to Ballard, which route to use, and possible funding sources for the project.

As you can see, this giant planning leap forward is the result of local, regional, and federal funding and cooperation. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has been playing nice with Sound Transit, and it shows: “Some of our work to collaborate with Sound Transit reached daylight. There’s a lot more work to be done, but I think we’re making good progress,” McGinn noted after the Sound Transit Executive Committee meeting.

In an article by the Daily Commerce Journal (behind a paywall—sorry), Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin characterized his collaboration with the mayor in the article as “cooperating with caution,” but that “the bottom line is we know we have to improve transportation.”

While this news certainly calls for cautious optimism, the collaboration is a pretty tangible sign that a streetcar to Ballard is actually going to happen, and that our leaders might actually fight for it.

UPDATE: McGinn spokesman Aaron Pickus clarifies that a streetcar is but one of the options considered for the downtown-Ballard corridor: “The corridor is identified in the Transit Master Plan as a high priority for high capacity transit, but we need to do the planning first before assigning a specific mode for the corridor.”

23 replies on “Sound Transit Will Study Ballard Streetcar in 2012”

  4. @3 Depending on how it is done they are not that different. Look at light rail through South Seattle. Runs basically like a dedicated lane street car.

    It is nice to see McGinn learning how to do his job.

  7. The line on MLK never stops at a single light, and never shares a lane.

    The mayor’s plan for a Ballard streetcar, which we can only hope the ST study finds inadequate, tacks it onto the SLUT (which hits about 8 lights before it even crosses Mercer) and shares downtown Fremont and the Fremont Bridge with general traffic.

    So while I’m thrilled the study is being fast-tracked, ST’s switch to “streetcar” language should be worrisome to all. (The “approved for study” concept that passed with the 2008 vote was for actual light rail.)

    Anyone seen ST’s final First Hill Streetcar plan? It’s useless crap. What a shame if Ballard gets subjected forever to 5 times longer but equally useless crap.

  8. Hello, the best technology for a Ballard-downtown rout was proposed, voted for by the people of Seattle multiple times, then actively assaulted from within and without: monorail.
    The road between Ballard and downtown does not need any more congestion, and it is a stretch that cannot be easily widened. The talking points I remember from the old monorail campaign that should be remembered are that monorails are cheaper and less obstructive during construction, provide less visual pollution than light rail, is cheaper than digging a tunnel, and takes up less space than light rail in the air.
    What went wrong with the monorail was not the technology, it was beaurocratic incompetence.
    What went wrong with the monorail: first and foremost it was established as its own agency/beurocracy. It did not coordinate with Metro and Sound Transit routes. The plan for a long continuous line between West Seattle and Ballard should have been two sets of lines meeting in the middle. It was a secretive, dishonest agency which squeezed out some of the key visionaries who helped get it on the ballot.

    It is time for all technologies to be on the table in our regional transit solutions. Each technology (bus, BRT, light rail, trolleys, monorail) has advantages for different types of routes.

  9. If this is supposed to be a streetcar from Ballard to downtown, it’s terrible news. It’s reasonably good news if it’s a streetcar from Ballard to Fremont.

    We need high capacity, fast, grade-separated transit from Ballard to downtown. Anything less will give future leaders a reason not to build it.

  14. Add me to the crowd shouting for grade separated transit. The Streetcar is a terrible idea (though the idea of the SLUT strolling my hood does make me chuckle).

  15. Why is this good news?

    What transit problem will this solve?

    A rails based streetcar line does not increase capacity and certainly isn’t faster. It is a LOT more expensive, and will cause a reduction in service to the rest of Metro to accomodate its high cost.

    Many people seem to think streetcar=dedicated rapid transit line.

    No.

    Now an Electric Trolley Bus extension on this route would be a nice idea. Same result, without cannibalizing the rest of metro to do so. Isn’t Rapid Ride planned for this corridor next year? If you want to throw money at something, then increase the frequency of the Rapid Ride buses. That would accomplish for more for a lot less.

  17. I love Nick Licata, but how long until he or someone else opposes this?

    McGinn spokesman Aaron Pickus clarifies that a streetcar is but one of the options considered

    Dearest Aaron and Mike,

    If you dipshits even try to sabotage this by inserting any bullshit bike stuff, I hope you get ruptured hemorroids for the next decade.

    — someone who voted for you.

  18. McGinn spokesman Aaron Pickus clarifies that a streetcar is but one of the options considered for the downtown-Ballard corridor…

    As I said before, we can only hope that Sound Transit finds the line preferred in last year’s “streetcar network” proposal grossly inadequate.

    I have been eagerly awaiting the agency’s work on this study (approved by voters in 2008), which was to look at true high-capacity transit from Ballard to downtown and/or east-west from Ballard to UW, with grade separation implied in both cases. I have somewhat more faith that ST understands what quality public transit should look like than Metro or SDOT or the mayor or the city council do (in spite of the death-by-1000-compromises First Hill Streetcar).

    I’d love to see a statement from the agency itself on how it will be approaching the study: expected capacity requirements, minimum acceptable travel times and headways, etc.

    Just the fact that the word “streetcar” came tumbling from the mayor’s office onto your blog this morning should pretty much disqualify McGinn from commenting again until the study is done.

  19. You wanna build dedicated light rail to Ballard from downtown? I’m on board. Street car? We already have them. They are called buses,

  21. Can we get some statistics on how many times a day the SLUT honks its horn or flashes its headlights? That fucking thing is always almost getting into an accident. I’m not talking the cheery bell ringing. The horn when someone is blocking the street, etc.

  22. I am sure that a “STUDY” was performed when the Taxpayers of Seattle voted more MORE THAN ONCE to run a Monorail from Downtown to Ballard. How much Taxpayer money needs to be spent on another “Study”?

  23. @#22:
    We need to spend every single penny we have and then find a lot of ways to squeeze our taxpayers some more before we decide that the studies need more study.
    That’s “the Seattle way”.

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