First Hill Streetcar - Broadway Visualization

WSDOT is not the only agency with amazing new visualization and animation tools. SDOT has produced some new illustrations and an animation that provide an enticing preview of life with a streetcar on Broadway in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

YouTube transfer, courtesy the Stranger.

What may actually be more interesting in the animation than the streetcar itself (after all, we do have one real life streetcar line in Seattle already) is the cycle-track that will be integrated into the project. Seattle's first cycle-track is coming early next year on Dexter Ave, but the Broadway Streetcar animation is a great illustration of how it'll look in practice on another important Seattle bicycle passageway.

The First Hill Streetcar was funded through the Sound Transit 2 plan passed by regional voters in 2008. Through an interlocal agreement, SDOT agreed to manage the planning and construction of the project. Construction begins late next year with the line entering service two years later in late 2013. One question that remains is whether the line, which starts in Pioneer Square, will terminate at the Light Rail Station at Denny, or proceed to the north end of Broadway at Aloha or Roy. Advocates for the North Broadway extension, including Transportation Choices, believe that by utilizing some of the ST2 funding to complete preliminary engineering and environmental work for the extension now, the city and Sound Transit will be in a good position to leverage federal dollars for the actual construction of the extension.