The South Lake Union Streetcar, officially the South Lake Union Line, is a streetcar route in Seattle, Washington, United States, forming part of the Seattle Streetcar system. It travels and connects Downtown Seattle to the South Lake Union neighborhood on Westlake Avenue, Terry Avenue, and Valley Street. The South Lake Union Streetcar was the first modern line to operate in Seattle, beginning service on December 12, 2007, two years after a separate heritage streetcar ceased operations.
The streetcar line was conceived as part of the redevelopment of South Lake Union into a technology hub, with lobbying and financial support from Paul Allen and his venture capital firm Vulcan Inc. The $56 million project was funded using a combination of contributions from local property owners, the city government, and grants from the state and federal government. Construction began in July 2006 and was completed over a year later by the Seattle Department of Transportation. The line is owned by the City of Seattle, with operation and maintenance contracted out to King County Metro.
The line is popularly known by its nickname, the South Lake Union Trolley (abbreviated as "SLUT"), which is used on unofficial merchandise sold by local businesses. The streetcar was controversial in its first few years due to its slow speed, low ridership, public funding, and connections to real estate development. Improvements to the streetcar's corridor since 2011 have increased service and improved schedule reliability, but ridership has declined since peaking in 2013. A planned streetcar project to connect the South Lake Union Line with the First Hill Line via Downtown Seattle was placed on hold by the city government in 2018.
History
Earlier streetcars and planning
The first electric streetcar to run along Westlake Avenue was operated by the Seattle Electric Railway and Power Company and opened five days after the company was awarded the city government's first streetcar franchise in October 1890. The Westlake streetcar line continued north from Downtown Seattle to the Fremont Bridge and was privately operated until being acquired by the city during the formation of the Seattle Municipal Street Railway in 1918. The streetcar system was gradually replaced with buses and the Westlake Avenue line ended service on April 13, 1941. Streetcar service in Seattle resumed in 1982 with the opening of the Waterfront Streetcar line along Alaskan Way, but the heritage streetcar ceased operations in 2005.
Restoration of streetcar service within the city was proposed in the 1990s to complement the planned light rail network put forward by Sound Transit and a proposed municipal monorail system. One streetcar proposal from Mayor Paul Schell in 1998 included re-routing a surface light rail line between downtown and the University District to serve the Seattle Center and South Lake Union, at the time a low-rise industrial area. The neighborhood had previously been proposed for redevelopment into a technology hub as part of the Seattle Commons plan, which was supported by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and civic leaders. After the Seattle Commons plan was rejected by voters in a set of referendums in 1995 and 1996, Allen's venture capital holding company Vulcan Inc. acquired waterfront properties in the South Lake Union area with plans to create a new commercial neighborhood.
Allen and Vulcan Inc. envisioned a streetcar on Westlake Avenue to link the redeveloped neighborhood to Downtown Seattle, similar to the Portland Streetcar's role in the revitalized Pearl District. The city government also studied the use of a streetcar and other modes on several major transit corridors, including Westlake Avenue. The $45 million streetcar project gained the support of Mayor Greg Nickels, but its cost was criticized by members of the Seattle City Council and political activists who saw other unfunded transportation needs, including street maintenance and bus improvements. The proposed streetcar would travel from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to the Westlake Center, where it would connect to the Seattle Center Monorail, buses, and light rail trains. The city council approved a redevelopment plan for South Lake Union to accommodate biotechnology and biomedical research in June 2003, but chose to defer the streetcar issue until funding sources were identified and approved.
Approval and construction
Vulcan and several businesses along the proposed streetcar route offered to pay $25 million towards the construction cost using a local improvement district levy, while the remainder would be funded by the city. The city council released $2.4 million in state and federal funds for the project's design and engineering work in April 2004; this was increased by an additional $4.3 million by the Puget Sound Regional Council. Mayor Nickels proposed a financing plan for the streetcar project in April 2005, using federal grants, the selling of naming rights at stations, land sales, and redirected transit operating funds to pay the $47.5 million cost. A consulting plan projected that the streetcar line would carry 350,000 passengers annually when it began operations in 2007 and double its ridership by 2016. Despite a city council analysis of the plan finding it to have funding risks and overstated promised ridership, the streetcar project was endorsed by the transportation committee and sent to the full council for a final vote. The city council voted 7–2 to approve the financing plan on June 27, 2005, allowing for contributions from the general fund to pay for the city's share of streetcar costs.
The formation of a local improvement district to contribute $25.7 million of the project's costs was approved by the city council in October 2005, despite some property owners opposing due to higher-than-expected assessments. Of the 750 affected property owners, 12 filed a formal protest to the local improvement district during the month-long protest period; several property owners also discussed a potential lawsuit to halt construction, while others were skeptical of large landowners who benefited from reduced assessments before the vote. The streetcar project remained controversial due to forwarded information given to Vulcan and its pro-streetcar lobbying group, as well as the use of public money to subsidize a billionaire's project. The city council gave its final approval to the streetcar project and its $50 million cost in March 2006, pledging public money that would cover all but $2.8 million of the construction costs.
Construction on the South Lake Union streetcar began with a groundbreaking ceremony on July 7, 2006, during which Mayor Nickels, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, State Representative Ed Murray, and county council chair Larry Phillips laid the first rails for the line. Track construction was completed on the Terry Avenue and Fairview Avenue sections first before moving on to Westlake Avenue between Denny Way and Valley Street; construction reached its halfway point in June 2007 and moved to Valley Street and further down the Westlake Avenue corridor. Westlake Avenue was originally a northbound-only street until September 2007, but was converted to two-way traffic for the streetcar; in October, Terry Avenue was converted from two-way traffic to become northbound-only. The Czech-built Inekon streetcars began arriving in September 2007 and street testing began at the end of the following month.
The streetcar line is officially named the South Lake Union Streetcar, but it is also known by a popular moniker – the South Lake Union Trolley (abbreviated as "SLUT"), which is used on merchandise sold by local businesses. The use of the alternate moniker as an official name is an urban legend that has persisted in the years since the line opened. The original creators of the "Ride the S.L.U.T." T-shirts explained that their use of the moniker was a protest against the declining use of Cascade in favor of South Lake Union; at the streetcar's opening, Mayor Nickels referred to the nickname by saying "I don't care what you call it, as long as you ride it."
Opening and later improvements
Streetcar service between the Pacific Place shopping center, South Lake Union, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center began on December 12, 2007, with 600 people at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and each train carrying a hundred people throughout the day. Rides were free through the end of the month and a $1.50 adult fare was introduced in January 2008; the streetcar carried an average of 3,900 passengers per day by late December. The final cost to construct the streetcar was $56.4 million, with the overrun blamed on additional utility work after the line opening. The local improvement district contributed $25.7 million to its cost (including $8.6 million from Vulcan), while federal grants paid for $14.6 million, state grants contributed $3 million, and proceeds from land sales and property exchanges with Vulcan yielded $5.3 million. Operating funds for the streetcar cost $2 million and had to be covered by further loans in 2007 and 2009 due to low advertising revenue and higher costs.
The streetcar was criticized for its slow speeds due to the lack of dedicated lanes and widespread transit signal priority, as well as disruptions because of cars that were improperly parked adjacent to the track. A transit priority intersection at Mercer Street was removed in 2009 during the street's reconstruction, which added several minutes to scheduled travel times. The streetcar tracks were also identified as a hazard for cyclists riding on Westlake Avenue or intersecting streets, causing crashes and injuries within the first year of operation. A group of six cyclists sued the city government in 2011 over the streetcar hazard, but the case was dismissed by the King County Superior Court due to a lack of evidence of fault. High-rise development in South Lake Union opened alongside the streetcar, including offices to accommodate the then-upcoming relocation of Amazon, new condominiums, businesses, and retailers. Public opinion of the streetcar grew unfavorable in its first years of operation, in part because of its low ridership; all but one of the candidates in the 2009 city council and mayoral elections stated that the streetcar was a bad idea when asked during a public debate. By 2010, streetcar ridership had reached 500,000 annual boardings and was continuing to increase.
Streetcar ridership rose in later years due to an increase in new businesses around South Lake Union, necessitating new service improvements. In May 2011, Amazon, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, UW Medicine, and Group Health contributed $65,000 to the city government to fund a one-year pilot to use the line's spare streetcar during rush hours to increase frequency to 10 minutes. Amazon announced plans in 2012 to build a new high-rise headquarters campus in Denny Triangle near the streetcar line and offered to purchase a fourth streetcar and fund its operations for ten years at a cost of $3.7 million, allowing trains to arrive every 10 minutes during midday hours on weekdays. The streetcar, painted in Amazon's corporate orange, arrived as part of the First Hill fleet in early 2015 and entered service later that year.