The Seattle line is only 1.3 miles long, but I managed to take about 800 photos of it...this thread shows the shop facilities and north end of the line.

 

The "Ride The Slut" t-shirts are everywhere:

 

The streetcar travels at the end of the night back to the shops on about three blocks of non-revenue track:

 

Garage:

 

Garage & driver parking lot:

 

Garage:

 

Shop tracks -- I watched them clumsily back one of the streetcars out of the garage, through a traffic light onto the next block, then bring it back in on the other track.  The maneuver took about 4 minutes because they caught red lights going in both directions!

 

Non-revenue shop track Sunday morning:

 

Large-scale new construction where non-revenue track joins the line:

 

Streetcar in construction zone (turnout to non-revenue shop tracks at bottom):

 

Looking back toward the construction zone:

 

Streetcar turns onto revenue track:

 

End of the line:

 

Looking south back from the turnaround stub:

 

Streetcar at the terminal island station:

 

Streetcar staged at the turnaround stub:

 

Bus at stop near terminal island station...unlike buses, the streetcars have doors on both sides which makes island stations possible:   

 

Brief center running in two-way traffic:

 

The streetcar line enters about 1,000ft. of exclusive right-of-way at this point:

 

 

The tracks are embedded in these runners in the grassy ROW:

 

 

 

Somebody please bury all these utility poles:

 

 

 

The streetcar pauses before heading back out into mixed traffic:

 

About to cross a busy street:

 

Crossing...

 

Returning to street running:

 

 

 

Shelter:

 

New Apartments:

 

New construction & old inactive freight tracks:

 

Waiting at the light:

 

Ugliest part of the line:

 

This couple didn't look like they were having a good night:

 

Good night from Seattle:

 

Jake...by far you're best photographs of the Seattle and Portland street car series you've done. That last one is a great closing photograph to the set. Couple of questions:

- Are these cars made by the company who made Portland's?

- Did you get any photographs of the Transit Tunnel that is about to become the light rail station?

The SLUT looks cool and the area it services is definitely up and coming, but as of now nobody rides it. It has an extremely limited area it services and costs more than the bus. Not currently very useful... But there are a bunch of businesses about to move to the area, so maybe it will be someday...

Articulated buses, modern streetcars running on dedicated ROW that is pervious surface, dense new residential development, young people, innovative new businesses...we're waaaay behind.

Yeah they had Paul Allen, a multi-multi billionaire backing this project; we've got Chris Smitherman against ours.

I dig it.

Those pictures have a very Boston vibe to them.

it may be a little ahead of it's time, but not for long. the growth all around it is stunning.

^

 

I think that's it. They picked the weakest area to serve first. Sound familiar?

 

Great pics, Jake.

Saturation coverage with saturated colors. I love these!

 

I don't like wires when they're power lines and communication lines that ought to be buried, but when they're catenary, I say bring 'em on! The more the merrier! ETB and streetcar catenary running side by side above the streets! :clap:

The photos are really great. The South Lake Union area is nice and all, but I think the photos made it look even better than it is.  Definitely cranes everywhere, and I know Amazon is moving there at the end of the year, but I don't know who else.  The streetcar seems very doubtful to ever really take off though.  It was a Paul Allen (Msft) funded gimmick, and unless they expand it through the rest of downtown, it seems to have very little purpose (just like the gimmicky monorail that runs a whopping 1 mile from the space needle to a mall).  It really is quite like the monorail, except it has stops, but serves the same area... An area that's already served heavily by buses and also an area that doesn't really have any destinations except very generally.

 

I wish they would have put it somewhere else (capitol hill!!??!!) but no, Paul `Big Bucks` Allen wanted his little baby in his new neighborhood.

 

So let's see, now Seattle has a useless monorail, a useless streetcar and a light rail system that runs from downtown to the airport. None of them connect or even really come remotely close.  The light rail system will be sweet, no doubt, but they forgot the North side of Seattle in their plans and it doesn't seem like a coherent plan to have 3 forms of rail so close to each other but completely separated...

 

Anyway, very cool pictures... 

I agree, unlike Portland, there are no interesting destinations along the SLUT's path.  And I think it should be extended into downtown because as-is walking is probably as fast as riding this.  I do think that the streetcar is fairly successful at place making in an area that was definitely an in-between area. 

 

Also the 3-mil light rail extension to the University will add 70,000 daily boardings which will improve ridership to well over 100,000.  It's a crying shame that they weren't able to do it as part of the original phase, though, and I never heard an explanation for why they chose to do the south portion first.   

Awesome threads. Look at all those cranes. We know there's no connection between those and the streetcars. A BRT or more highways would do the same!

Notice how Seattle is the city doing the best during the recession?? It's because they have all of the software engineers and such. If America could produce enough engineers we'd have more cranes going up right now!

 

Man, who knew that a city known for Frasier and Nirvana could look so great.

 

 

Great photos!

How do I see the pictures? The descriptions are there.

 

Mrniles

jmeck my understanding is that even though some tunneling is involved, the south portion of the light rail was much easier to do (although they have had issues at the very end of the line with taking it all the way into the airport). the northern extension, to the university, involves a lot more expensive tunneling or bridgework or something like that.

very cool thread. This is on top of my most need to go cities list.

Awesome photo tour! thanks