Seattle Streetcar Past, Present, and Future
Several years ago, my partner bought this Seattleness book, an infographic storybook about Seattle. As big transit fans and near-daily streetcar riders, we were immediately drawn to the following page in the book:
The idea that we once had a well-developed, inter-community street railway system, one we do not see reflected now in 2024, was fascinating. Where did they go? Why did they go, concretely? I am no novice to transit history, I know how automobiles took over the United States and how at most junctions where we could go right toward public transportation infrastructure we pull a solid left drift, but how does that happen across time? Thankfully, the archives offer answers.
Past
1800s
A businessman builds out Seattle’s first horse-drawn street rail on 2nd Ave
Frank Osgood built the first Seattle area street railway line, regarded as the “father of the Seattle transit system,” in 1884. It ran along 2nd Ave, drawn by horses on a steel track laid in mud, for a nickel per ride. Picture horse-drawn carriages (read: horses do not get bathroom breaks) on a dirt road with Seattle rain. I would rather not walk in that, I will pay you a nickel, Frank. Tip the horses a solid carrot.
The first Seattle streetcar ride, on horse-drawn carriages, at Second and Mill Street (Now Yesler Way)
The same intersection (Second and Yesler Way) today
The successful Seattle streetcar system becomes the first on the West Coast to fully electrify
The streetcar sees immediate success. With support from investors and inspiration from Virginia’s new electric line built by Frank J. Sprague in 1888, Frank starts putting work into electrifying the Seattle streetcar system. He faces pushback from the community-- riders were worried the new power lines would hurt them, with concerns for ruined magnetized watches and random lightning strikes on unsuspecting horses. They also just didn’t believe electricity could replace the strength horses had, particularly on Seattle’s steep Seven Hills, the name given to seven of the large hills in Seattle. Despite this pushback, Seattle still becomes the first West Coast city to have fully electric service by April 5, 1889.
Seattle’s “Seven Hills” include Beacon Hill, First Hill, Yesler Hill, Renton Hill, Capitol Hill, Denny Hill, and Queen Anne Hill. If you have ever walked through Seattle, you’re acutely aware there are more than 7 hills. Credit to Geology Writer, David B. Williams
Real estate investors build out Seattle’s system of private streetcar lines, with fierce competition enabling speed and innovation
National builders (St. Louis Car- JG Brill Company, a few others) built the cars, but the vast majority of line builders were real estate investment companies more worried about selling housing you could reach along the new lines than they were about the fare, transportation, and maintenance. With so many competing for the ability to lay tracks, the city government had to get creative. One story describes a “build-off” between L.H. Griffith’s Seattle Electric Railway and the cable electric companies--
“When the starting gun was fired in October 1890, it took Griffith’s crews just five days to reach the lake with track and start operating an electric street car. The result of their toil survives today as Westlake Ave.”
In case you missed that--Westlake Ave line, built in less than a week.
Westlake Ave followed the general path of a native route traditionally used for generations, but rebuilt it for the street rail.
1900s
Seattle Electric Company consolidates all the private streetcar lines under one management, with the nickel fares slowly eating away profits
By 1892, Seattle had 48 miles of electric railway and 22 miles of cable railway, doubling over the next decade. In 1899, Stone and Webster, a utility/traction management company, consolidated the ownership of routes under the Seattle Electric Company. Despite this consolidation, they still refuse free transfers between their lines. With the private streetcars under an agreement to only charge a nickel for fares, the system slowly falls into disrepair. The streetcars pay their employees in what amounts to stock options, as they struggle to balance payments.
The city buys out Seattle Electric Company to keep transporting the wartime contract workers
Overcrowding, unreliable scheduling, accidents (traffic signals were not introduced in most places in the city until the 1920s as part of the State Highway system), slides, and deteriorating open-air cars (hard pass on that in the winter, I will walk, thanks) frustrated passengers into taking their complaints to local government, who would later make what is quickly believed to be an over-valued offer to take over the Seattle Electric Company. With over 540 streetcars, over 195 miles of electrified rail and 8.6 miles of cable lines, Seattle Electric Company was out much before their 40-year franchise license was due to expire in 1952. The city had no better luck with maintenance when they took over in 1919, though they were marginally better at management. This purchase proved too costly for the government, but they felt they needed to invest to keep the system operational for wartime shipyard workers when they made the offer in 1918. The city raises the fares, no longer bound to the mandated nickel as they were a publicly-operated system, to three rides for a quarter.
A deadly crash causes a critical investigation into the streetcar system
The streetcar frequently struggled with crashes and road issues--notably, in 1937, a West Seattle Streetcar jumped off the tracks and went down a ravine on Avalon Way, killing three and injuring 59. The severity of the incident further fueled the conversation around the system’s decline as an investigation is launched. Several comparison tests are run between different options across buses and rails, pushing more eyes toward possible trackless replacement systems.
The people love the streetcar, but love does not pay bills
The people still show wide support for the streetcar system, despite its sad state throughout the 1930s, advocating for its maintenance and riding to the tune of 50 million rides per year in 1935. (For comparison, the present-day 3.8 miles had a bit over a million rides in 2022, the last year of an official report.)
The voters repeatedly back the streetcar, but struggling to find millions in funding for modernizing the railway after blocking from the bus and auto industries in roads increasingly dominated by vehicles (and without an advocate once the mayor who created the system died in the worsening depression), the new mayor quickly signed contracts to continue with the trackless trolley plan against the will of the voters.
Seattle Streetcar map as of 1941, before the rails were paved over. Photo credit to Andy Filer as posted to Seattle Transit Blog
The streetcar system is abandoned and paved over
The system was efficiently replaced with trackless rubber-tired trolleys and buses within a short period between 1940 and 1941, with all traces of the street rail gone by 1943.
The lines were abandoned in the 1940s just as ridership increased, as people had to get to their jobs to contribute to the economy and renewed war efforts. This is widely regarded as a ploy by the bus and auto industries to obtain the City’s contracts, considered lucrative at the rate of $12,000 per vehicle ($254,397.42 inflation-adjusted in 2023). Cars and buses gain roadway as previous right-of-way roads occupied by streetcars are opened to traffic. Public transit and rail lose to cars and highways again.
Streetcars in front of Pike Place - See here for this today
2000s
People continue to advocate for rail, with one success in a downtown waterfront line
The 1970s and 1980s see some attempts at reviving the street car system, including the successful initiative for the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar which runs until its maintenance barn is torn down to make way for the Olympic Sculpture Park in the mid-2000s. George Benson, a city council member, was the main promoter, not only traveling to Melbourne to pick out the wood and cars reminiscent of those from the 1920s street car heyday, but he was able to be found painting them down by the waterfront as they prepared them for service to the community.
Present
As of 2024, Seattle has two short streetcar lines
South Lake Union Streetcar
Track the South Lake Union streetcar
Launched in 2007, its 1.3 miles from SLU’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to Downtown Seattle’s Pacific Place shopping center were meant to connect to the Seattle Center Monorail, buses, and light rail trains as well as the then-new research industry complexes to each other. After turmoil to get it funded, half the $52 million cost was picked up by local land developers including Vulcan, and half by the city.
(If you need a fill-in, Vulcan is Microsoft co-founder’s Paul Allen (deceased) venture holding company, which has bought and developed property all over the Puget Sound area for decades.)
The SLU Trolley follows a long-standing path of other transit
Colloquially known as the South Lake Union Trolley (guess the abbreviation, which is an acronym in this case), the current streetcar runs partially along the old line of the Westlake Ave rail, aforementioned in this article as having been built in five days roughly following historical native paths which had gained increased usage with the US’s occupation of Suquamish and Duwamish lands. This line was taken over by the government in the buyout of Seattle Electric Railway, and then ceased running in April 1941. Parts of this line also overlapped with the Waterfront Streetcar, but again, this was demolished in 2005 for Olympic Sculpture Park. The SLU Trolley is now partially funded by Amazon, as it largely traverses their Seattle headquarters campus.
Places to check out near the SLU Trolley
Opening Day of the South Lake Union Streetcar (Trolley)
First Hill Streetcar
Track the First Hill streetcar
The First Hill Streetcar runs partially along an old line constructed in 1891, which also ended in 1941 once city trolleys were brought in. The First Hill Streetcar links 2.5 miles from the Capitol Hill Link Light Rail Station in Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square, through the International District. It launched in 2016 after a delay in testing vehicles for many months and a backlog of part orders (including brakes) from Czech manufacturer Inekon. With ground having originally broken in 2011, the project goes over budget by $1.6 million that ends up paid by Inekon as part of contract penalties.
Soil issues meant no Light Rail for First Hill, which prompted the alternative of the streetcar
The First Hill area was supposed to have a light rail station to connect medical facilities and Seattle University, but due to soil issues discovered early on, that station was scrapped from the plan for the Link. This prompted studies for alternatives to service the area, leading to the First Hill Streetcar vote. The First Hill streetcar’s construction was undertaken in April 2012, and completed in late 2014, though the line was not opened until January 23rd 2016.
A brake failure on Broadway causes an indefinite shutdown
In 2017, among several other fatal accidents (largely related to cyclists), streetcar service was halted indefinitely after a streetcar lost power and slid downhill over two blocks of Broadway following a brake failure. Service resumed within a month but restricted speed. If you are an observant passenger today, you might notice a slowing stop in the streetcar’s path along the bottom of Broadway hill near Yesler Terrace, where it slid.
Image of the bottom of Broadway hill, the bottom path of where the streetcar slid. It stopped by leveraging the curve shown in the track in front of Yesler Terrace Park. Image taken in 2023.
Present-day streetcar ridership
The modern streetcars have seen solid ridership across their lifetime, which is only just recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The return to normalcy has been a bit harder for the South Lake Union streetcar, which in the modern day largely caters to office workers just getting back into their buildings that do not often need the path it follows. With how steadily it climbed over the years prior, it will be interesting to see how it fares (pun intended) in the future.
Future
There have been a few proposals over the years, including a citywide streetcar network brought by the city government in December 2008. As of February 2024, nothing has progressed past planning.
Center City Connector dies before starting
Center City Connector was a project to connect the two existing Streetcar lines in South Lake Union and First Hill, linking a variety of popular destinations downtown to the two lines on either end. This would have them overlap in downtown, on an exclusive right-of-way transit lane for the streetcar. Although it was supposed to break ground in 2017 with construction running 2018-2020, and despite even accepting federal grant funding for the project, in 2018 Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered an investigation and construction halt due to escalating costs. The original approved budget cost for the line was $197.7 million in 2017.
The original proposed Center City Connector, including a northern Broadway extension, which is not included in further line mockups. The Center City Connector is rebranded to the Culture Connector by the Bruce Harrell administration.
A renewed attempt at joining the streetcar lines?
Despite brief optimism for the expansion of the Seattle Streetcar System (and a rebrand to the Culture Connector) upon the election of Bruce Harrell, the renewed passion proved short-lived. With insufficient support from the City Council, Mayor Harrell’s plans were quickly removed from the budget without replacement. This is worsened by the October 2023 Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) Delivery Assessment describing that the plan would cost $410 million, over 43% over budget as of the last assessment due to areaway and Jackson St Bridge upgrades necessary to handle current weight restrictions. The plan would take 18 months to design and about seven years total would be needed for the project to be operational.
As of February 2024, Seattle is set to be forced to return over $7 million in federal grant money come March, due to delays in the progression of this plan, bringing an existing budget shortfall much further down.
The city claims no changes to the status of the project, but hope and funding both remain low for the joining of the streetcars.
Historical Sources:
Seattle Municipal Archives
MOHAI University of Washington Libraries Archives
Leslie Blanchard, The Street Railway Era in Seattle: A Chronicle of Six Decades (Forty Fort, PA: Harold E. Cox, 1968)
Walt Crowley, Routes: A Brief History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle (Seattle: Metro Transit, 1993).
Read More
Where to go and what to see near the Seattle First Hill Streetcar
Where to go and what to see near the Seattle South Lake Union Streetcar
