The First Hill Improvement Association was dismayed. The First Hill Streetcar is slated to run down Broadway, if the mayor adopts a recommendation from city transportation planners, not past the hospitals on Boren, as the First Hill Improvement Association wanted. Neighborhood leaders fired off a letter to Mayor Mike McGinn on March 22 to “express our frustration and deep concern that the SDOT preferred alignment for the First Hill Streetcar appears much more like a Capitol Hill Streetcar and leaves First Hill—yet again—with the short end of the stick.” The frustration is understandable. Originally, Sound Transit planned to build an underground light-rail stop on First Hill, but when that was found unfeasible due to soil conditions, the agency promised the neighborhood a streetcar instead.

But today the neighborhood group is rejoicing:

Escalators and moving pavements put an end to bitter bickering over the Broadway (formerly First Hill) Streetcar

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has just announced a revolutionary change in how the First Hill Community gets to work. Instead of hiking up and down Madison Street, they will be whisked up by a series of covered, high-speed escalators!

The revolutionary idea is modeled after the Central-Mid-Levels escalator in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Island is dominated by steep, hilly terrain, which required the development of unusual methods of transport up and down the slopes. In the Central and Western district, there is an extensive system of zero-fare escalators and moving pavements. The Mid-levels Escalator is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world,[2] operating downhill until 10 am for commuters going to work, and then operating uphill until midnight.

Good one, First Hill improvement Association. We get jokes.