Could be but won't be

A streetcar will never ‘glide through the city connecting a string of core neighborhoods’
- it’ll be stuck on rails in traffic winding its way on a nonsensical route already served by other, better modes of transportation

Ray Rhodesia would make things work well.

@2 Not If cars are banned in streetcar cirridord. Bring it on. This would open up more space for safe bike trails too.

Ugh. Streetcar CORRIDORS.

I knew Sam Zimbabwe was white when there wasn't a picture of him in the article about him.

@4/5 - if you’re gonna ban cars on the corridor, a bus still makes more sense than a streetcar - you don’t need to build and maintain specialized infrastructure, or acquire special vehicles that can’t be used anywhere else.

@7 -- Yep. There are a lot better alternatives: https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/09/03/mobility-alternatives-to-the-ccc/

Naah. He'll just get eaten up and spit out.

@Greg -- What do you mean by saying that DC has "a checkered past with mass transit"? The DC Metro is probably the best American subway system built in the last 100 years. It is the third most popular subway system in the country. We wish we were building something that good, a point articulated quite well in the not so distant past: https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/02/14/news-roundup-geeks/#comment-292594

"Sound Transit is in charge of delivering Link—the real savior to all of our woes, mind you, but at this point the 20-year plan is largely set in stone—and King County Metro runs your daily bus."

If Link is our savior, we are doomed. First of all, Metro buses will continue to carry the vast majority of riders in Seattle, long after ST3 is built out. Second, we really fucked up the planning for ST3 (for reasons that have been mentioned before). Third, and most importantly, the city still has influence over things that Sound Transit is building. Here are a couple examples:

1) The station in Ballard. Right now folks are leaning towards building it in West Woodland, not Ballard (https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/12/07/ballard-is-big/). Moving that station significantly to the west (i. e. putting it in Ballard) would make a big difference, even if most of ST3 is crap.

2) Station at NE 130th. This is a "no-brainer", that somehow ST forgot when the were busy planning a line to Lynnwood. Current plans are to build it years later than the other line, which is just fucking stupid.

A lot of this work will likely fall to Anne Fennessy. But Mr. Zimbabwe (as another voice) could be instrumental in helping the city avoid big long term and short term mistakes.

Even with Metro, the city could help things along quite a bit. Money spent adding bus lanes could result in much faster and frequent bus service. There are also bus related projects that need to be built, like the first BRT project in the area (on Madison). While Seattle does not control the buses or the trains, the city does have tremendous influence on them, and let's hope that the new mayor and SDOT director does a better job than the lying pricks that preceded them.

What @2/7 said: the streetcar won’t “glide” anywhere, removing cars from its path will make downtown even more constricted, and I sincerely hope @4 isn’t severely injured when his bike’s wheel gets caught by a trolley rail.

I spend most of my time waiting to turn left while a river of pedestrians wonder by. As well as turning right on a one way. tunnel under or go over with a foot bridge I say. Ive sat through 3 cycles of lights waiting to turn right with 2 cars in front of me. Lets get the walkers under or over.

@4. Ive had more close calls with bikers by far, than cars and trucks.. Considering the amount of each on the road, Bikes lose bad. I had a guy follow me through traffic on 2nd ave downtown and when I came to a red light he pulled up to my right side, he punched my car. cussed me out and road off.. To this day I have no idea why..and no, it was not a homeless guy on a green bike..

@13, I do sympathize with you about waiting for turns and pedestrians who are proudly inconsiderate of traffic flow, but you have the order of priority wrong. Ships, trains, people, bikes, transit, car pools, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, and last on the priority list is the single driver in a car. As a driver you have to realize that you are not the top of the food chain, but the very bottom. This isn't an anti car POV, it's just the reality of rights and responsibilities as well as the law. If anyone should be inconvenienced and bridged or tunneled in your scenario it shouldn't be the pedestrians forced to climb stairs, but the vehicles.