Photo & Text © 2012 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved.
I guess this sign says it all. A streetcar ran along the Seattle Waterfront for over 20 years. Historic cars from Melbourne, Australia carried passengers along the popular line. It stopped service at the end of 2005, a year after its visionary and champion, Seattle City Councilman George Benson, died. The SAM Olympic Sculpture Park construction demolished the streetcar barn and plans to address damage from the Nisqually earthquake to the adjacent viaduct also developed. I don't know if there are plans for incorporating the streetcar into the new waterfront plan once the Alaskan Way Viaduct is removed and a new traffic corridor is reestablished, sometime around 2018. Right now the #99 bus line has replaced the streetcar route. Meanwhile, the old streetcars are covered in shrink wrap and stored out of sight, and their route signs are wrapped in vines.
2 comments:
This one is a little sad. I loved the streetcars and riding on them was always exciting. I hope they return from out or their shrinkwrap some day.
I rode that streetcar back in the day. The signs seem more than a little unnecessary now.
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