Southlake Union Streetcar could be offline until fall

SEATTLE — The Southlake Union Streetcar will almost certainly be offline for weeks. But how many people use it to get around anyway?

Even when it went online in 2007, the Streetcar was already being called ‘the streetcar to nowhere.’

The 2.6-mile rail line takes riders from Olive Street South to Fred Hutch.

Now both substations that power it are down and might not be back up until fall.

KIRO 7 looked for regular passengers and couldn’t find any. SDOT says 500 passengers ride these street cars every day.

And while that is down, a lot, from its heyday, Seattle transportation officials insist these are a valuable service for transit riders.

The signs are all there. The Southlake Union Streetcar has been stopped in its tracks.

Rob Rivens of West Seattle was asked if he takes the streetcar.

“I do not,” he said. Ever? “No.” Anytime? “No,” Rivens said. “I live in West Seattle. And so, I just come to work down here and home. And that’s it.”

“I don’t take the streetcar,” said Adrian Norris, Queen Anne resident.

We heard that a lot at this stop for the streetcar dubbed “the SLU” on Westlake Avenue North.

So, the fact that it isn’t going to be working for several weeks doesn’t affect her? “I didn’t know it wasn’t going to be working for several weeks, honestly,” Norris said, laughing.

The SLU Streetcar went out of commission last Friday. That’s when the service control panel on the second of two power substations went on the blink. It was already working as backup for its twin substation that went down in July.

Still, a spokesman for the Seattle Department of Transportation says there are plenty of other options for regular riders.

“You’ve got the Route 40, the 70, the Rapid Ride C are all good transit options that will get you to the same places in that area,” said Ethan Bergerson.

We checked on the SLU streetcar ridership. Back in 2019, more than a half million passengers rode the SLU. The number cratered in 2020 during the long COVID shutdown. But two years ago, ridership was still less than 200,000. And it isn’t expected to reach 2019 numbers anytime soon.

But SDOT spokesman Bergerson insists the SLU streetcar is integral to the city’s transit network.

“There’s the Streetcar,” Bergerson said. “There’s the bus network. There’s a lot of options so people can take the ride they choose to take to get around.”

He says METRO is having to look out of the country for the parts to repair the substations. That’s why they don’t expect to get these streetcars moving until Fall.

And there is more bad news. Sound Transit is planning to build a link light rail station in this area. Once that starts, the SLU Streetcars will be out of commission again.

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