Seattle's SLUT

Seattle is close to opening it's South Lake Union Trolley line. The 1.3 mile line cost $50.5 million to build. That is correct folks, Seattle spent $52.1 million on a rail line route that could be walked in less than half an hour, one that was already being served well by buses, and one that has not scientific proof that the existence of the line itself will improve businesses along it.

You say "That can't be true; rail is permanent and it improves business. I've heard it." But the matter of the fact that those claims are baseless. Portland and Tacoma have had trolleys for years and been unable to show if and how those operations improved revenues for local businesses or how they spurred additional development. And that is part of the key, additional development.

Tacoma's trolley has been operating for over 4 years. Portland's for over 6 years years. In this day when we are bombarded with countless studies how is that no one's studied either of these lines? Trolley's are the hottest thing since.... well, whatever was hot in 1880. They're a late 19th century technology. For some reason they're back in flavor with the urban elite so surely if there were concrete economic gains to them, they'd be talking about them wouldn't they? Often times it's the lack of addressing an issue that makes me the most skeptical.

The 1.3 mile line is projected to carry a 300,000 riders in it's first year. Annual operating costs are expected to be $1.5 million with projected fare box collections still leaving the city short $1.1 million every year. Now these aren't huge numbers for a large city like Seattle (nor Denver nor Aurora nor Colorado Springs). However this is for just one line that operates on just 1.3 miles of track. This is one line that was already served by buses.

How many riders were already riding the bus? How long did that trip take? How much did it cost to operate them? How much business were those riders already generating? And give it's location will SLUT simply become a glorified taxi service for people attending events downtown and looking for cheaper parking on the north end of the line?

What does this mean for Denver? It appears that if we call a spade a spade, we'll not only need to come up with $40 million per mile to build street cars (that is, no cost advantage or LRT) and that annual operating costs versus fares is going to necessitate about another $1 million a year to operate it. So projects like extending the current light rail line at 30th & Downing a couple miles through 5 points or a couple miles around downtown will mean coming up with a hundred million or more to build the project and a couple million a year to operate it. Assuming that 10 police officers cost @ a million a year, which would do Five Points more good? Have another 10 - 20 officers a year to address their needs or a street car line? More so, since when did anyone ever show that current bus service is not meeting needs? The city of Denver recently raised taxes again to try to meet existing infrastructure needs. Why do we want to do it again?