New Seattle Streetcar Lines Proposed

Seattle passed $600 million city streetcar proposal that would add lines to Capital Hill/First Hill, Ballard, and the U-District. Of course there are opponents and proponents already, within hours of the vote, which is the Seattle way; nobody agrees on how to execute or even fund the work, so it ends up getting delayed and more costly. In the end Seattle will have the most expensive streetcar lines ever, because of warring factions.

Oh, did I go off on a tangient? Sorry...I just want to see more streetcars and few buses on the streets of Seattle!

Sound Transit's UW Link Gets Fed Funding

In November Sound Transit got its $813 million funding boost from the federal government, for the UW Link for Light Rail. Check out their handy interactive map to see what that link will look like!

Amtrak Leavenworth Station NOT a Bust!

Wow, talk about turnaround!

Within hours of the last blog post about Leavenworth's Icicle Station, I received an email from a Leavenworth Real Estate agent telling me the project was actually a go. He then put me in touch with the mayor of Leavenworth, who told me it's active and moving forward.

"We have passed 65% construction documents and will have our 100% plans on Jan 15, 2009," he says. "We will go out to bid for construction in Feb, with construction anticipated to start mid-March 2009. We are currently working on our agreements with Amtrak for Operations and Maintenance. We are estimating service start in mid to late September 2009."

So now we've got a clear idea of what's going on. Visit the Icicle Station Website or read the Official Press Release from the City of Leavenworth HERE!

Amtrak Leavenworth Station a Bust?

Back in January the Seattle PI reported that Amtrak was adding a new Leavenworth Station. I dutifully added my blog post with a map. Since that time there apparently has been zero movement on the project, and repeated contact with the town officials who championed the project for so many years have gone unanswered. Amtrak is even telling me they have no plans to build a station there.

So unless we hear otherwise, we can imagine that folks won't be stopping in Leavenworth while on the Empire Builder any time soon.

Sound Transit Link Light Rail Concept Videos

After a hard day of watching really bad videos on YouTube, why not sit down to some concept videos showing how Sound Transit's Link Light Rail stations will look in the future? It's pretty cool they can actually show people what they layout will be and how the movements look.

My favorite? Northgate Station, because that it shows Interstate 5 exactly as it is and has been since I was in high school during the Disco Pandemic, crowded and moving slowly. Now that's progress!