Driving home from work tonight, on the first day of our new $52,000,000 Paul Allen tinker-toy, it became readily apparent that just the mere presence of the streetcar route is going to screw up traffic much more than it is going to help.
The Mercer Mess is already a complete fiasco, and the addition of 2 additional stoplights, one westbound on Mercer, and one eastbound on Valley, is certainly not welcome.
Tonight, I was actually a little bit excited to see the streetcar (the purple one) for the first time, as it waited patiently for the light to change so it could cross the street. The intersection is one way southbound on one side of Mercer, and two-way on the other side. All the other directions of traffic were stopped so that the streetcar could get through the intersection. This by itself is not a big deal. But, the problem came in because no other cars went through the intersection, and the light did not change for another 60 seconds! If you have ever gone along Mercer trying to get to I-5 during the evening commute, you know that every second counts. 60 seconds of traffic not moving at all is the LAST thing you need in that corridor. And that's going to happen every 5 minutes, since it will also happen when the trains cross Westlake to go North.
I'm not impressed with the new streetcar. But I do need to get one of those shirts!
Curious about Seattle streetcar history? Check this out.
The Mercer Mess is already a complete fiasco, and the addition of 2 additional stoplights, one westbound on Mercer, and one eastbound on Valley, is certainly not welcome.
Tonight, I was actually a little bit excited to see the streetcar (the purple one) for the first time, as it waited patiently for the light to change so it could cross the street. The intersection is one way southbound on one side of Mercer, and two-way on the other side. All the other directions of traffic were stopped so that the streetcar could get through the intersection. This by itself is not a big deal. But, the problem came in because no other cars went through the intersection, and the light did not change for another 60 seconds! If you have ever gone along Mercer trying to get to I-5 during the evening commute, you know that every second counts. 60 seconds of traffic not moving at all is the LAST thing you need in that corridor. And that's going to happen every 5 minutes, since it will also happen when the trains cross Westlake to go North.
I'm not impressed with the new streetcar. But I do need to get one of those shirts!
Curious about Seattle streetcar history? Check this out.
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