My first streetcar ride
| Last night I happened to be walking by a streetcar stop with some time on my hands so I thought I would give it a try while it’s still free to ride. After discovering that the arrival times on the readerboard aren’t entirely accurate, I managed to get aboard the Lake Union-bound car and rode all the way down to Fred Hutch. I walked around for a few minutes to see if there was anything around that would make me want to take the trip again and discovering that the answer was, “No, not really”, I got back on and came back downtown. |
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Tacoma has a streetcar, too; it travels several times an hour between the Tacoma Dome and the Theater District, with stops in between them at spots where people are likely to want to go. It has to wait for traffic lights just like the bus, but it has its own dedicated track, so it’s a quick and efficient way to get from one part of downtown Tacoma to another. Also, it’s free, all the time. I really like the Tacoma streetcar and I really wanted to like the South Lake Union Streetcar, too, but now that I’ve had a ride on it, I think I have to agree with Ryan’s assessment of it: “It’s basically a moving umbrella”. Riding in traffic meant that riding the streetcar wasn’t any faster than taking the bus; I watched several people get off the streetcar to walk over to the 70/71/73 bus stop and wondered why they didn’t just get on the bus in the first place. The answer, I strongly suspect, has something to do with the streetcar currently being free. I’ll be curious to see how many people take it once it costs money.
I try not to be negative about any form of public transportation because I actually like having it and would like to see our already-okay system even more improved but the streetcar just seems pointless to me.
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It’s a godsend for the people that work near lake union. We finally have some options for lunch. I use it in the morning because it’s more reliable than the 70 bus. I can take any bus I want as long as it goes downtown and know that I can catch the streetcar to work near SLU.
I think it’ll be more useful if/when it gets extended down Eastlake and over to the U-district.
It seems pointless to me too. I work in SLU, and live just a few blocks up Eastlake, and the only time I’ll maybe ever use the streetcar is to go downtown for lunch or possibly a dentist appointment. I’m pretty sure that there aren’t enough of us down here to make the stupid thing worthwhile, especially since it doesn’t go anywhere up Eastlake toward the U District, and no one really lives along where it does go. Such a waste of money.