ALLIED ARTS :: QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE

Streetcar Position

July 15, 2004

Richard Conlin
Transportation Committee Chair
Seattle City Council
City Hall, Floor 2
600 Fourth Avenue
Seattle WA 98124-4025

Dear Councilmember Conlin:

     Allied Arts supports a downtown circulator streetcar line that functions as a complete loop, linking Pioneer Square, the Waterfront, Pike Place Market, Belltown, the Seattle Center, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, Westlake Center, the Downtown corridor and the International District.¹  The line should work as a system, expanding the downtown campus so that residents, workers and visitors can more easily access adjacent neighborhoods.

If such a circulator loop were planned and scheduled, Allied Arts would support the “Build the Streetcar” route from South Lake Union to Westlake Center, as an initial segment of a larger circulator route.

Allied Arts also supports moving the Alaskan Way Streetcar to Western Avenue as a means to increase and improve the neighborhood connections between the Waterfront and adjacent neighborhoods, as well as to provide more space for destination-oriented activities on the Waterfront. Similarly, a Western Avenue Streetcar could serve as a component of a Downtown circulator loop.

Created as a transportation system and well integrated with other transportation systems, the streetcar could enhance the quality of life in the area because it will increase mobility in and around the greater downtown area and help to stimulate and/or support continuing economic development in adjacent neighborhoods and those experiencing revitalization, such as the economically emerging Jackson Street Corridor. This expanded streetcar system could provide the transportation infrastructure needed to support emerging Urban Villages located next to the downtown core.

As plans for the streetcar are developed, Allied Arts urges that strong consideration be given to land use opportunities and transportation alternatives, specifically:

• Identify and study opportunities to develop parks and plazas along the streetcar route
• Encourage privately-owned, publicly-accessible locations, such as sidewalk cafés, along the route
• Secure safe pedestrian access along the route and especially at loading stations
• Provide comfortable riding areas for bicyclists along the route
• Develop easy way-finding among transit systems’ interchanges

Sincerely,

David Coleman, AIA, co-chair
Allied Arts of Seattle
Urban Environment Committee

¹ The route could travel north from Pioneer Square up Western Avenue, north along the west side of the Seattle Center, east along the north side of Seattle Center toward South Lake Union, south on Westlake to the Westlake Center, south through downtown to the International District, and west through Pioneer Square to Western Avenue.