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Beautiful Seattle transit line gets one-fifth the ridership of Canada Line

July 5th, 2010 · 32 Comments

As some of you may know already from following my twitter posts, I was in Seattle for the last few days. (Thanks to all the enthusiasts for keeping the blog lively while I was playing hooky.)

Besides paying no tax on anything I bought there, as a result of the state’s controversial (and now court-challenged) decision to exempt B.C. residents from Washington sales tax, I also spent some time riding around on the city’s new transit systems.

First off, the new light-rail link from downtown Seattle to the airport, which opened last July and was just lovely. As much as we think the new Canada Line is swish, it really comes off looking a bit like a Vancouver special compared to the money that Seattle invested in its line. It cost half a billion more than the Canada Lineand part of that seems to have been invested in truly gorgeous station design.

The line starts under the Macy’s department store at 4th and Pine and it has some of the feel of a grand train station. In the underground tunnel, which amazingly also serves many bus routes that run downtown, the platforms are made of granite, with inlaid patterns and textured decorative touches. There are huge art-deco style lights hanging in the huge space and walkways through the station that allow you to look down on the tracks and platform.

The cars are fabulous too, with raised sections in parts of each car that really let you look out over the scenery when you’re whizzing through all the southern neighbourhoods of Seattle, not to mention the rolling hills as you ramble through industrial zones and the countryside, crossing over various freeways.

The 16 -mile line cost $2.6 billion, according to reports I’ve been able to find. Some of that was undoubtedly because it’s just a much longer hike out to the Seattle airport, so the last two legs of the trip (Rainier Beach to Tukwila and then Tukwila to the airport) are really like being on a train. But some has to be just the money they invested in the stations.

In spite of all that, though, reports from earlier this year were saying that the ridership is only 20,000 a day. It seems to be popular with airport travellers, though. When I rode out at 8 a.m. on Saturday, almost everyone on it was heading to the airport. Takes 35 minutes end to end. Although it runs at street level through the residential areas of Columbia City and Rainier Beach, it zips right through because of priority access at intersections. It was really just like being on SkyTrain.

That’s just the beginning of what is a sudden transit explosion in Seattle after years of local politicians and citizens doing nothing but arguing. They’re now in the middle of building a $1.9-billion line that will run from the downtown up to the University of Washington through Capitol Hill. A whole block of Broadway on Capitol Hill seems to have been levelled in preparation for building a station and that part of the line.

And there’s also a streetcar now running from central downtown out to the edge of Lake Union — the kind of thing that Vancouver would like to build to extend from Granville Island around False Creek. Again, a beautiful little line that takes you through the condo explosion happening in that area, but it seems more like a tourist line than a real commuter service. Granted, I was riding it on a Saturday and it does appear to serve a cluster of medical facilities at the northern end but still … you have to wonder about why cities build streetcars, other than for the sex appeal. Realistically, a bus could serve just as well in those areas.

But in the current competition that appears to be going on among Cities with the Hippest Transit Systems, it really seems like you’re a nobody unless you have one of a streetcar line with those modern new cars.

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