The Seattle Department of Transportation has asked the City Council for $9 million for additional design and engineering work on the mile-long line through downtown that would link two operating streetcar lines.
Mayor Jenny Durkan suspended work on the project and ordered a review in March 2018 following reports of ballooning costs for the project. This past January, she indicated she wanted to go ahead with the project, although major questions about how much the project would cost and where the money would come from remain.
One of the contributors to the higher cost is that the new vehicles that the city plans to purchase for the new line from CAF are nine feet longer and 25,000-lbs. heavier than the Inekon-made streetcars in use today, according to a transportation department presentation to a council committee. That will require modifications of platforms and a maintenance facility, and reconfiguration of some tracks.
The council’s transportation committee has approved the request and sent it on to the full council for a vote.
At present, the city transportation department estimates the cost of the Center City Connector, including utility work, at $285.8 million, leaving a funding gap of $87.9 million. The earliest the line could be in operation is estimated at 2025.
The transportation department has also reported to the council committee that combined ridership totals on the two streetcar lines were up 18% in 2018 over the prior year, to just fewer 1.7 million riders. That was entirely driven by increases on the First Hill line, which runs from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill, ridership on that line was up 31% year over year. The South Lake Union line, operating in a part of town that is home to Amazon and other tech companies, saw a 4% decrease, which the city blamed on deteriorating on-time reliability caused by construction and traffic congestion in the area. For the first quarter of 2019, however, ridership on the South Lake Union line is up 6% over the year-ago period.
Building anything in the complex geography of Seattle is expensive. Now, for the sake of all those here whining about the streetcar cost, let’s put it in perspective. Seattle is building a highway tunnel that’s roughly the same length as this connector streetcar line, which will marry the pair of existing lines into a genuine system. Only – the highway tunnel is currently some $223 million over budget, with current costs estimated at $3.4 billion. Now, just for fun, let’s put it in streetcar terms: that would be enough to build a streetcar line 15 miles long. Ten times the length of that highway tunnel.
Yes, Gerald, utility relocation is part of the cost. We know that. Why did you think we didn’t know that? Being part of the cost, that makes it part of the cost. Nothing on earth has more fingers in the pie than a public street. A utility and stakeholder list 30 names long isn’t at all unusual. That’s just for a street, before you get to, say, a bridge or a major grading change.
Everyone who uses the street – not just the utilities but police, fire, bus companies, traffic engineering and others get a swing at the plans. And sometimes a piece of the pie. Any street (longitudinal or cross) under state highway or county road jurisdiction means another level of review. The city’s pedestrian/ bicycle coordinator goes over every inch of the plan set and often asks for substantial changes to meet ADA or for any other reason. Anything that affects a wetland, a navigable river,a historic district, or any environmentally sensitive area, adds to the review process and often the construction cost.
Not just part of the cost, but part of the timeline. Typically utilities go in about 18 to 24 months in advance. Then comes rail and catenary construction. Street pavement and landscape, final street lighting, and final traffic signals, final road signs, and sidewalk restoration go in last. Which means it takes four years to do light rail on its simplest segment such as a wide and level street. Four years after assembling a budget and completing environmental reviews.
Light rail ain’t cheap and it ain’t quick.
You seem to all forget that the first thing that needs to be done before any actual construction of the streetcar line is utility relocation…that isn’t cheap especially if it involved water and gas mains, which it almost certainly includes…that means major street work before actual rail construction. You think that everyone on the Trains site would know this by now as it’s always mentioned as part of any new light rail/streetcar line.
As for Inekon, it’s a Chinese company, CAF can build their streetcars in New York…that should explain everything right there. If you still don’t understand the problem, then let me make it plain, under the updated Buy America requirements and with our current leader, any public agency is hard pressed to make the case for buying equipment from any Chinese company at all.
Unfortunately, this is the way they do things around here. It takes forever to get things done. Look at the mess with the I 5 SR 16 interchange and realignment of roadway in Tacoma . My understanding is that project has been ongoing for 12 years and still not finished. I have been back 3 years now and still a traffic nightmare every day. Completion of 1 mile of street car line another 6 years and way over budget. A project not well thought out, with incompatible equipment. Consultants who worked on this project seem incompetent at best.
It is always the consultants, lawyers and engineers that benefit and it is always the taxpayers that get screwed. Unlike Charles, I have been to Seattle, several times. And I stay in an area that is too far to walk to King Street Station so whenever I need to get from my hotel to King St to catch the train I don’t bother with the streetcars I take a cab. No loading gauge problems there.
Sounds like it’s over designed, and consulting engineers benefit at the expense of taxpayers.
I haven’t been to Seattle so I can’t comment on the project. I can comment on the car length, seconding posters below. This isn’t 1842 and John Tyler isn’t US President, when railroads were first developed to a mishmash of gauges and other standards. By the time Seattle started its first street car they should have known what the ultimate loading gauge would be, and stuck with it.
I’m not saying this is the biggest screwup in the history of urban transit, nor do I claim it’s typical or frequent that something like this happens. Nor do I say that the cost will be catastropihic. What I’m saying (as with other posters below) is that it was entirely preventable.
Regarding the cost–take a look at costs for divided, limited-access highways per mile.
why not build a connector then run present cars as through trains to end of line for both segments. Not sure why new cars need be made. Appears the projected cost is too excessive. Are they sure citizens are demanding this service?
If there was any fleecing done it was when they didn’t think straight when they told CAF how big the cars needed to be before they looked at the actual tracks and boarding areas.
Visions of Illinois Terminal ordering new cars from the St Louis Car Company in 1953 just to find out they couldn’t cross the bridge in Peoria.
How many millions for one mile of street car? The tax payers are being fleeced.
While on the subject (or not on the subject) of modern streetcars, we had our first trip on Milwaukee’s The Hop over the weekend. It does connect busy and attractive parts of downtown to each other, rides well, and is worth the fare (free). Double-articulated for tight curves. Doesn’t appear to have traffic signal pre-empts (I post this strictly by observation, not knowledge). All in all, an expensive system that people ride because it’s there, while having no real place in the overall scheme of regional transportation. In other words, totally like the Detroit downtown people mover, which distributes people around downtown – people who take long trips by private car to get downtown.
Bottom line – not worth the cost but in no way can The Hop be called a total bust.
PS – The system cannot accommodate trains, only single cars.
Why not just buy another batch of Inekon streetcars? Have those been a problem? Seems odd that they would purposely force a big change in the infrastructure to accommodate new rolling stock unless there was an important reason.
I’m a strong advocate of public transportation, especially rail. But nearly 259 million for one mile of track, good Lord. I’m with some of the other posters, the consultants and who knows else have got to be making out like bandits. I’ll never be convinced that there isn’t an less expensive way to build light rail public transport.