Yesterday was opening day for the new South Lake Union Streetcar line in Seattle, WA. This is not to be confused with the first stretch of light rail, scheduled to arrive late 2009.

I met a group of friends downtown at the Westlake station to join in on the festivities. After collecting a bags worth of streetcar swag, we piled into the inaugural run of the purple train along with probably 200 other people. It was crowded. Sadly amidst all the chaos, only one out of the five people in our group got a golden ticket.

I think I see the back corner of my head somewhere in this picture.

For some reason – probably to be absolutely sure that there would be no accidents on the first day – they were running the streetcars at a maximum of 12mph (they are governed for 30mph, but will unlikely be run over 25mpg according to a City representative). Because of this, it was a slow ride, and left many people unimpressed. The city probably should have told everyone about the speed cap in advance.

One of the things that was being handed out was a “passport” containing a list of retailers, restaurants, and other businesses along the streetcar line. These participating businesses would stamp their name in your passport if you stopped by, and if you got 10 stamps, you could drop the passport off to enter into a drawing for prizes. Many businesses were also giving discounts to streetcar riders.

We got off the streetcar the North end of the line, popped open our passports, and found a nearby participating restaurant for lunch. Afterwards we set off, by train and foot, to explore. The passport served as a guide – getting enough stamps to enter the contest was really just a secondary goal. We all had a great time walking and riding around a neighborhood that none of us have spent much time in, and discovered new coffee shops, parks, expensive-yet-amazing condos, and a very cheap and tasty happy hour menu. The city did a great job with this program.

Throughout our travels, we bumped into a reporter for the Seattle PI. Both Andrew and Jessika were quoted in an article about the streetcar.

Three blocks from the streetcar line, near Fairview Avenue North, the streetcar’s debut brought busy sales of the SLUT T-shirts at the Kapow Coffee shop, where entrepreneur Jeremiah St. Georges has been selling them.

Outside the shop, Andrew Filer called the line a “small start” toward developing density that will support it — “a good idea in the long run. I like it.”

But Jesika McEvoy, sporting one of St. Georges’ T-shirts, was unconvinced. “Why spend a lot of money on something that doesn’t go very fast and stops at every stoplight? It seems like Paul Allen should have funded this exclusively … the only ones benefiting are him and a couple of retailers.”

The day ended with 11 stamps, a streetcar ride back downtown, and a bus ride home.

Seattle has been in great need of a good public transportation system for a long time, and it’s really great to see it finally happening.

The facility is located in south downtown (also known as “sodo”), across the street from the former Raineer Brewery, which is now the Tullys coffee headquartes.

The mayor of Seattle started things off.

As part of Sound Transit’s art program, they had the huge “R” that used to stand high on top of the former raineer brewery restored, and used it to write “Rail” on the side of the building, I thought this was pretty cool.

The poles that hold up the electrical wires for the rail cars in the outside lot are also part of an art project, apparently.

These are supposed to be horsetail. As the mayor said, “I always thought that the stripes were a safety thing, but it turns out that they are art!” (paraphrased). Honestly, I thought they were ugly safety stripes too, so who knew. A sound transit representitive referred to the yard as the Sound Transit Missle Defense Silo, which I thought was aptly chosen.

Painful speeches from various politicians went on for a while, I had a whole rant prepared here but decided against including it. Maybe in a future post.

Anyway, obviously no building dedication is complete without a pair of oversided scissors and a photo opt:

With the facility’s only security now lying on the ground in ruins, everyone swarmed into the building where were were greeted by cake, coffee, and lots of free swag.

Too much cake, coffee, and swag later, our tour group set off, lead by Roger Pence, a community outreach coordinator for sound transit.

The building is four stories tall. The upper floors have very nice offices, with very nice views of the city. Note that they still had not installed furnature, computers, or anything in most of the building.

This will be the command center:

The lower and ground floors are warehouse space and repair/maintanence shops.

Since the electrical system is on the top of the rail cars, each service bay has an overhead mezzanine, as well as an underground pit for working on the wheels and stuff.

To keep the cars looking nice, they have a paint room and a 2-car carwash:

And finally, we got to walk through one of the cars, they are very nice!

More photos here and here. Official press release about the opening here, website and factsheet here. The Seattle Channel also put together a video, although I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.

Light rail – finally coming to seattle for the first time in 2009!