Port applauds efforts to save the streetcar

Port of Seattle commission president Bob Edwards today welcomed efforts by the city of Seattle and King County to save the waterfront streetcar by providing a new maintenance barn in Pioneer Square.

"This is a new solution to what had become a sensitive problem, and the city and the county appear to have a plan that keeps the trolley operating while offering real benefits for Pioneer Square," Edwards said.

The streetcar currently is scheduled to shut down in November when the Seattle Art Museum will tear down the old trolley barn -- near Broad Street at the north end of the trolley line -- to proceed with construction on its new Sculpture Park.

The streetcar will have to close down until the new barn is built. The Port of Seattle had offered to provide land and pay for track extension 1.2 miles to the north - near the Amgen campus and the city's proposed new pedestrian bridge serving the Lower Queen Anne area.

Edwards noted that the Port's offer was designed to keep the streetcar operating during construction when the Alaskan Way Viaduct is replaced, as well as extending service to customers along Elliott Avenue and Queen Anne neighborhoods.

He said that if conditions change in the future, the Port is willing to stand by its offer to help finance an extension of the streetcar to the north.