We should definitely add buses, and trolley buses are a fine idea as long as the "stacking" and "derailing" problems are addressed.

But the deep bore tunnel is important. It makes our streets work. With the surface 99 option, our streets would be devoted much more to through-traffic, which, together with inevitable concessions, would make things vastly worse for pedestrians, bicyclists, sidewalk cafes, etc. The surface-option crowd, who I tend to respect ideologically, seems to be too much in the clouds, and often too young, to realize how it would turn out in real life after the political realities, engineering, and unintended consequences hit.

Downtown Seattle can function because of tunnels -- the BN tunnel, the Transit Tunnel, the covered parts of I-5, and soon the 99 tunnel. Without these, we'd have a huge mess at ground level, and concentrating so many things in such a small area wouldn't work.

I forgot my main point. The question of whether to add trolleys is a separate issue from whether to get 99 out of the way. Personally I support an in-city bus levy. Let's subsidize Metro like the state subsidizes Amtrak.

In the long run, rail rapid transit within the City of Seattle should be our core transportation infrastructure. But we will need and want to supplement that infrastructure with a dense network of bus routes, streetcars (yes), bike lanes, and sidewalks. In the short term, however, investments in bus service are what we can do most quickly, and they will probably have the most immediate positive impact, as this blog post points out. It's an idea worth further investigation.

Does anyone know how much in annual tax revenues are necessary to support $124 million in new bonds, which would be necessary to build the infrastructure for a "Rapid Trolley Network"?

The City has un-tapped legal authority to raise some funds for transit investments. Under state law (see RCW 82.80.140), the Seattle City Council has the power to form a citywide "transportation benefit district." The Council could form the district without a public vote---in other words, by a majority Council vote at tomorrow's Council meeting, if the Council so desired---and enact a $20 annual vehicle fee, which would raise approximately $9 million per year (according to data that I received from the state Department of Licensing, in 2008 there were 454,238 vehicles registered in Seattle that would be subject to a transportation benefit district's taxing authority). If the public votes on the tax, a transportation benefit district can levy up to $100 per vehicle.

Great article. Virtually all of the facts relating to the viaduct replacement and associated transit solutions for downtown has been shouted down and buried by spinners, special interests and political flaks. From the million dollar "trick question" referendum to the delusional recommendations of the mysterious "stakeholders" the replacement solution for the viaduct still preferred by voters and the most efficient Rapid Trolley Network was never given a fair evaluation or honestly presented to the public.

Are you really speaking against spin while claiming that the "replacement" alternative is preferred by voters?

My impression is that the public likes the idea of the deep bore tunnel. Each person's opinions has multiple facets, but the current proposal seems to be either favorable or a good compromise for a lot of people, because it doesn't shut 99 for several years, we still get a throughway with the same capacity of the existing tunnel, we clean up the waterfront, and (big one for me), we don't turn Downtown streets into a series of highways.

Edit: More accurately, the negative opinions of the various camps are reduced by this option compared to other options (not including the idiot "view while driving" people, who should watch the road). The main legitimate groups would be the "highway capacity" group that gets their through road, the "improve Downtown" group which gets their waterfront back and saves their streets, the environmentalist group which gets some transit improvements (at least some, even if not related to the tunnel) and no net additions to freeways, and the industrial group who gets a through-route for some trucks and a wider Alaskan Way for the rest.

That doesn't mean everyone is delighted. Just that nearly nobody is getting their nightmare scenario. That's the difference between this proposal and all others. For some of us, it's the ideal scenario.

Plus, there seems to be a big "let's just do it" view as has been much discussed.

This one doesn't even need a shovel, yet as you ably say has "gone missing" when needed the absolute most for but one simple reason--planning author Peter Hall said it best back in 1989: "Thus, indeed, are the ordinary people betrayed by those they trust to run their lives."
Keep poking, sharing, and enabling citizens to do more than just vote now and again.

Let's see, finishing the Rapid Electric Trolley Bus Network so compellingly detailed here in Crosscut, completing all the missing lines on the map above, lots of geographic coverage, costs $142 million.

So how many feet of light rail subway (including station costs) do we get for $142 million, serving a small bit of the territory on the same map?

Attracting some Federal money "for free," $142 million in local funds gains us 2,100 feet of our forthcoming Capitol Hill subway, less than half a mile. To get the full 3.1 miles and two stations of University Link: $1.1 billion in local funds, $825 million in Federal funds.

But this is what the voters want ... build the subway first. Figure out the buses later.

Thanks for the encouraging alternative to the dominant view--I am supportive in many ways. My caveat is that you reduce transportation to the quantitative issue of cost/moving-a-body and are not touching on the issue of how we do that, i.e., the aesthetics. I commute 90 minutes each way on Metro (a trolley bus) and a Sound Transit bus. Even in comparison with my decrepit 1997 stripped-down Toyota Corolla, the commute is not a completely pleasant experience. Stacking, delays, missing buses and missed connections, at times obnoxious loud co-travellers, and incredibly rough roads mean not only can I not write a note to myself, but often have trouble reading or thinking. I do it because it makes me morally superior to others in their cars, but its not fun and I'm not sure it's sustainable as public policy until we make it a reasonably pleasant and productive experience (mhays misses this point in his swipe at "idiot 'view while driving' people"--commuting is a drudge and sometimes a nice view helps.).
The industrial-commercial issues need a hearing in all of this--there's more at stake than simply us solitary commuters.
Thanks for raising the alternative; a noble thing.

Well I don't want to comment on this until I hear what Bruce Chapman has to say on the subject. Perhaps the perfection of a fungus that thrives between the toes on an exotic frog in the Amazon rain forest gives him clear evidence of an intelligent designer that channeled through the Discovery Institute's most astute thinkers will provide Mr. Chapman with insight as to how best deal with this matter.

The Crosscut piece on Seattle's trolley bus plan gone missing has opened my eyes to examples in other cities:

The lost trolley bus plan of Portland, Oregon is documented at http://www.cafeunknown.com/2006/10/off-line-too-soon-portlands-electric_09.html .

The lost trolley bus plan of Los Angeles is documented at http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1533&context;=ced/places .

Trackless electric trolley buses apparently were the frequent first choice for transit mode substitution and improvement all over America when the electric street railroads went bust in the 1920s and 30s. I recall riding in the 1960s on electric trolley buses in Detroit, Michigan along former streetcar routes.

I've posted a map of Seattle's street railroads in 1916 at http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/SeattleStreetRailwayMap1916.pdf . Overall it illustrates that the location of transit lines in Seattle is quite gradual and evolutionary.

On the subject of First Hill service -

How about a pedestrian tunnel - with conveyor, from Rainier Square to Seattle University? - instead of the Streetcar kludge to replace the ST station cut?

On the subject of North Capitol Hill service - how about a gondola to the S. Lake Union Street Car, instead of the Capitol Hill Street Car kludge making up for the station cut by Sound Transit?

From the Sound Transit Staff Directory, 'R on Beacon Hill's job:

SODO and Downtown Seattle:
Roger Pence
Community Outreach Coordinator
401 S. Jackson St.
Seattle, WA 98104
Telephone: 206-398-5465
FAX: 206-398-5217
e-mail: roger.pence@soundtransit.org

FWIW, Mr. Pence did get the Beacon Hill station added to the plan, probably the last good change they made. The station added at Roosevelt at the efforts of a neighborhood rival of his was a bad idea, even though I actually like that activist better.

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