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SLUTs Take to the Streets Today in Seattle

December 12, 2007, 7:27 am

The unfortunately named and horrendously ill-conceived and over-priced Seattle trolley takes to the streets today.  The Anti-Planner has an overview in the third in his series on light rail follies.

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3 Comments

  1. Matthew Brown:

    What I want to know is: who the hell thought of that name?

    I'm a railfan and even I know these are dumb ideas; a streetcar line gives up any speed advantage over buses. A line that runs in the median like LA's Blue Line is better, but even then, the street-level running is a short bit on each end, not the whole run. Street railways have no advantages over buses, require more expensive infrastructure, and cannot be rerouted because of accidents or to take advantage of changing demographics and ridership patterns.

    At least off-street light rail had advantages for the rider, in terms of travel speed on medium-haul routes, although the infrastructure is so insanely expensive that they simply aren't worth the money in most cases. (Of course, their being government projects doesn't help; nobody has an incentive to build them efficiently).

    December 12, 2007, 3:12 pm

  2. Allen:

    $52 million for 1.3 miles?

    December 12, 2007, 8:52 pm

  3. randomscrub:

    The new library at my alma mater was almost named the C.L.I.T., but the impending giggles were narrowly averted, changing the "technology" to "resources."

    December 13, 2007, 11:41 am