The CD News has a post up about an effort to move the central/First Hill streetcar over to 12th Avenue (south of Pine) instead of Broadway.
This makes a ton of sense to me. 12th Avenue down around Seattle U is catching fire, and there’s plenty of pedestrian-friendly retail opportunity all the way south to Jackson. Broadway south of Pine, on the other hand, is mostly parking garages and hospital entrances.
Of course, those hospital entrances are exactly the problem. The whole point of the First Hill streetcar was to serve First Hill, which is being bypassed by Light Rail (in what will likely be looked upon decades-hence as a decision as misguided as having the DC Metro bypass Georgetown).
Still, it’s worth exploring. I bet the ridership numbers are greater than they would be for the Broadway alignment, which is estimated at about 3,000 riders per day (PDF). One alternative would be to proceed with the Madison St. bus corridor improvements that were studied by Sound Transit(PDF) during the FH streetcar design process. Or, better, yet, just build a Madison streetcar line all the way out to Madison Park.
You can read more about the 12th Avenue alignment in this PDF. And all of these options are interesting to think about in light of the planned Yesler Terrace redevelopment.
When I first read that a trolley might serve First Hill and the hospitals, I thought “That’s a great idea!” A lot of older people with health problems can’t afford to own a car, and this would make it possible for people to take transit on the LINK and then transfer to another smooth ride to the hospital or clinic. This would make it a lot easier for retirees to live in housing near transit stops and not own a car.
Then there are the people who fly in from Montana, or Alaska, or Oregon, because these are the catchment areas for Harborview, as a regional trauma center, Swedish, for heart surgeries, Virginia Mason for diabetes, and Children’s Hospital. People coming from Alaska and Montana, or even from eastern Washington, often don’t bring a car.
And of course there are the staff and employees of the hospitals who can’t afford to drive and park in the area and need public transit to get to work- a highly skilled well-paid community that won’t get smaller until people stop getting sick.
So when I heard that our world-class cluster of hospitals might be served by a modern transit line, I thought it was a great idea. And then I learned that the hospitals are the problem.
Yes, the hospitals are the problem, because just two blocks away are students and bars and gawd knows, if anyone needs a lift from a trolley, it’s a student on their way to a track meet or softball game. Why, walking across SU is almost as far as from Kane Hall to the Hub at the U of W. And surely you don’t want the drinker to bring their car to a night of drinking. Who knows, you might even see cute little shoppes develop as the ground floor of more condos in the currently under-developed 12th Avenue Corridor.
I try to broaden my horizons and not be amazed at the parochialism of the Seattleite, but they (I’ve moved out) keep raising the bar. I’m bracing myself now for the conspiracy theories, the full-court press for hipster transit, the grotesque argument that moving the line from the edge of the SU campus to the other edge will make a big difference, and the casual assertions that patients in wheelchairs will have no trouble climbing a few blocks of hill to get to the hospitals.
I’m bracing myself, but mainly I’m really glad I don’t live there anymore.
SC:
First, what’s with the attitude? Park it elsewhere, please.
Second, I think you misunderstood me when I said “the hospitals are the problem.” My point was simply that the hospitals were in fact the whole point of the streetcar in the first place, and therefore any transit link has to take them into consideration. Which is exactly what I spent the rest of the post doing.
Third, to marginalize transit-oriented development as just “shoppes” or whatever is insane. It’s an essential part of why we build high-capacity transit corridors in the first place.
Finally, I even threw in a shout-out to the Madison avenue streetcar, because I know it’s one of your favorite ideas and I agree it’s a good idea and I think it’s an even better way to serve all those hospitals.
Sorry if I missed your support for the hospital riders. I read the CD News item, which you said made a ton of sense and should be explored and I was off to the races. Too often in the Slog or Crosscut we can read people who actually do think the hospitals are the problem. Pushing a wheelchair for the past twenty years has made me a little touchy (or just plain grouchy) perhaps.
Another reason I’m touchy is the belief that only a massive wholesale move to TOD low-income housing will avert AGW. I’m guessing we need to get almost the entire Boomer cohort on board and for the over-65s the hospital-clinic situation becomes central.
What I was marginalizing as just “shoppes” was just that- the belief that Seattle needs more retail in the 12th Ave corridor. To me it looks like Seattle has plenty of retail already. The 12th Ave corridor is an anomaly, not a persistent area of redlined poverty and underdevelopment like the south end of MLK was for so long.
The shoutout to the Madison Streetcar idea was appreciated, but a little confusing for only going near VM and Swedish while Harborview is the undisputed champ when it comes to transit-dependent patients and families.
Anyway, gotta run- no carefully thought out conclusion tonight.
Even Broadway is not all that close to VM or Harborview, not to mention all the housing on First Hill. What about a wider loop that followed Boren all the way up to Madison or even Pike? If I remember correctly that part of Boren is pretty much flat anyway.
Harborview isn’t that bad from Boren because it’s relatively flat. And I do mean relatively because most of the sidewalks in that part of town are busted up so bad. VM is a real headache but their ER entrance can be reached by a relatively flat route from Boren or Madison. A southbound car that zigged onto Madison from Broadway and then turned left onto Boren would go close to VM, closer to Swedish, and close enough to the View.
Actually, a pretty good argument could be made that folks going to VM or Harborview should get off Link in Downtown and take a bus there. Or perhaps Cap Hill (doesn’t the 60 turn and run down that way)?
Remember, you’re building your own future. Eventually you may not find it so easy to walk up or down hills or run to transfer to a bus.
Regarding the Central Streetcar, the 12th Ave and Broadway loop alignment is more costly, but serves both VM to the east and Cherry Hill to the west. It seems like a good idea to me, if the money is there.
A Madison streetcar is one of my favorite ideas, too. Madison is about 4 miles from Elliot Bay to Lake Washington, making for a $140M streetcar line. Sadly for us, how can you justify this alignment? Wouldn’t it be better to extend the Central Streetcar through north Capitol Hill to the U District? This connects two Link Stations and replaces a heavily-used bus corridor. It would be shorter and therefor cheaper. It’s my vote for line number 3. I was a real railfan I’d post some renderings of the alignment, but you’ll just have to use your imagination…