Here's what I was looking for TehBorken. The article from yesterday's P.I.
[P class=rddateline]Tuesday, March 28, 2006
[P class=rdheadline]City Council approves South Lake Union streetcar
[SPAN class=rddeckline]Construction on 1.3-mile line could begin in summer[/SPAN]
[P class=rdbyline]By [A href="mailto:
[email protected]"]LARRY LANGE[/A]
P-I REPORTER
Seattle City Council members gave their last, somewhat hesitant approval Monday to build a 1.3-mile streetcar line from Westlake Center to South Lake Union.
Assuming all of the needed $49 million in construction money is lined up, the streetcar line could be running by the fall of 2007. The line would be the first added to the city since the waterfront trolleys went into service in 1982.
"This is a great day for everyone who supports the streetcar and believes in building a transit system that will serve Seattle for the century to come," Mayor Greg Nickels said after the council vote.
Last summer, council members had initially approved the streetcar proposal, aimed at improving transit service into a neighborhood where Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and his investment firm plan major developments. Monday, several council members worried that not all the construction money has been found.
Councilman Peter Steinbrueck offered an amendment that would have increased the assessment for more than 700 property owners along the line above the $25 million they've pledged so far toward the construction cost. With the city still short $2.8 million in construction cash, he said, there was a danger that the city would have to tap general-fund cash to make up the difference unless the property owners' contribution was raised.
Seattle's general fund supports most city government functions and is financed mainly by property, sales, business and utility taxes.
Steinbrueck's amendment failed, however, and members voted for a proposal by Councilwoman Sally Clark. Her amendment requires Nickels to provide quarterly reports on the new line's progress that will identify other "non-general-fund sources" for financing if pending grants aren't obtained.
The final OK means that assessments will be mailed to the property owners within two weeks, and construction can begin this summer, said Michael Mann, deputy director of the mayor's Office of Policy and Management.
"Today the City Council is taking its first step toward securing Seattle's transportation independence and controlling our transportation destiny," Councilwoman Jan Drago said. Councilman David Della, supporting Clark's amendment, said the South Lake Union system could be expanded, and he suggested linking it to the International District.
The city thinks it has a good chance of covering the $2.8 million in construction costs it needs with a federal economic-development grant still under review but supported by members of the state's congressional delegation.
The system, if built, would be owned by the city. Mann said construction will take about 16 months, though he could not say when motorists would start to be affected by the work on the streets.
Streetcars operated on Seattle streets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but were removed as the use of autos increased. Service was resurrected in 1982 on the waterfront between Pier 70 and South Main Street. That line was extended to the International District in the early 1990s.
The city's operating plan assumes trains initially running at 15-minute departure intervals for 15 hours a day, perhaps over longer periods later. Mann said Metro, King County's transit agency, would operate the trains. The operating plan estimates that ticket sales would pay 15 percent to 34 percent of annual operating costs for the first nine years, with the rest coming from car sponsorships, advertising and federal grants.
The operating plan, estimated through 2016, is based on Metro paying 75 percent of the operating costs not covered by ticket sales, with the city paying 25 percent.
