Streetcar proponents kick off campaign to promote more lines

By LARRY LANGE
P-I REPORTER

Streetcar advocates are campaigning again, and they may bring their bully pulpit to your neighborhood if it's a candidate for a new line.

The Seattle Streetcar Alliance kicked off its latest effort Tuesday at the Westin Hotel, talking up the streetcars and preparing to take its message to people in Queen Anne, Belltown, downtown, Pioneer Square, the International District, Ballard, Fremont and the University District where new lines might reach.

Will the idea sell? Participants weren't clear, even as they hoped so.

"It's going to take some time," said Ted Choi Tam, a real estate broker and business owner in the International District.

His neighborhood could be served by one of the four new lines the city has pinpointed: a four-mile route through downtown on First Avenue linking Seattle Center with King Street Station and South Jackson Street.

There are three others:

A 3.5-mile line to the University District using part of the South Lake Union streetcar corridor and extending north up Eastlake Avenue to the U District.

A 4.4-mile line from Westlake Center to Fremont and Ballard, via the west side of Lake Union.

A 2.8-mile line from Pioneer Square to First Hill and Capitol Hill, using Jackson Street and extending north on Broadway.

The group includes businesspeople, government officials, neighborhood activists and environmental groups. It hopes to privately raise $100,000 for the campaign, which will take much of this year, said James Kelly, alliance co-founder and Seattle Urban League president.

"We have benefited from this investment (in the South Lake Union line), even though it was a considerable investment on our part," said James Falconer, an alliance member and chairman of the Vance Corp., a major land-owning firm.

A key to more streetcars may be adjacent property owners, who could be asked to help finance construction. Their participation is up in the air.

Landowners paid for half the construction of the South Lake Union line, but, "I don't know off the top of my head if you'll see that same situation (in Pioneer Square) as that line expands," said Ryan Romaneski, director of the Pioneer Square Community Association, which will help campaign for more streetcars.

Nickels and most City Council members support streetcar plans, but there are skeptics and other neighborhood priorities to overcome. As Metro takes over the cost of running the South Lake Union line, one outcome could be fewer hours of bus service added in the city later.

"You don't enhance, for fun and games, a bunch of streetcars when parents are afraid to release their children on the asphalt because there are no sidewalks," said Richard Dyksterhuis of the Broadview Community Council.

P-I reporter Larry Lange can be reached at 206-448-8313 or larrylange@seattlepi.com. Read his Traffic Watch blog at blog.seattlepi.com/seattletraffic.

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