Mayor Jenny Durkan interrupted in March the expansion of the tram – which would connect the two fragmented lines of the city with a new lane along First Avenue – after a Seattle Times report on Traffic Lab is a project Seattle Times, which examines difficult transportation issues in the region, highlights a promising approach. hes to ease traffic jams, and helps readers find the best ways to get around. It is funded with the help of community sponsors Alaska Airlines, CenturyLink, Kemper Development Co., NHL Seattle, PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company, Sabey Corp., Seattle Children's Hospital and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. The editors and reporters of the Seattle Times operate independently of our funders and retain editorial control over the contents of the Traffic Lab.
M. Durkan hired an independent consultant, KPMG, to review the costs and benefits of the project. This review was supposed to be completed last month, but the Durkan office said Tuesday that it's turned out more complicated than expected and should be completed in August.
The mayor's office refused to release draft versions of the KPMG report. Durkan's office also said Tuesday that "in parallel with the KPMG review, they had learned that the new streetcars, ordered in the fall for the expanded system, are larger than the city's current streetcars, raising questions about their compatibility with existing channels, but the city's Department of Transportation (SDOT) knew at least some of these issues last year, shortly after signing the $ 52 million construction contract. of 10 new trams
Including the Seattle Trolley, operates on a standard gauge – the distance between the two rails.The two current Seattle streetcars, manufactured by Inekon, and the newly ordered, manufactured by CAF USA, are of caliber standard, with wheels spaced 1,435 meters apart to fit the tracks.The body of the old Inekon trams is wider than one centimeter than that of the CAF cars
But the The new CAF cars are longer and heavier than Inekon cars.
CAF cars weigh 81,461 pounds; Inekon cars weigh about 60,200 pounds
The CAF cars are 75 feet in length; Inekon wagons are 66 feet in length
This difference in length of nine feet was raised as a problem last fall.
SDOT signed the contract with CAF at the end of September, the first of the trams to be delivered in June 2019.
In early November, King County Metro, which operates the trams for SDOT, wrote to the city with concern about how new cars would enter the two cramped maintenance shops of the agency, where the underground quarries were customized. – Built for shorter Inekon cars.
"Has the increased length of the new car, 75 feet versus 66 feet, been applied to parking plans showing storage capacity?" Tedd Hankins, Metro Tramway Superintendent, wrote to Chris Eilerman, the city's streetcar director. "So we checked that the pits are long enough to stay [e] at both bases?"
A week later, on November 11, Hankins again wrote to Eilerman with concerns about how longer cars would work with "
" In addition to store interferences, on Broadway, the front the new car will interfere with a driveway when it is moored, "wrote Hankins. "We can also put a car down at the end of Broadway and spin another car in front of it, which will not be possible. It also means that we will not be able to tow or tow a CAF car. The existing buckle to go out will not work too for the CAF car. "
Hankins refers to the area near the Capitol Hill light rail station where the First Hill tram ends its journey and turns on a boom-like track
Emails were part of a Huge treasure of documents previously obtained by The Seattle Times as a result of a request for public records at King County Metro.The responses provided by SDOT are unclear, and Eilerman and SDOT have not responded to requests
In the end, the importance of these problems is still unclear
.200 million project, they were enough to let Durkan pause, leaving the project in limbo.
But city councilor Rob Johnson, a long-time supporter of the enlarged streetcar, said he had some concerns about funding the project, but not
The tramway project has been planned since at least 20 12 and essentially got $ 50 million in federal funding, with $ 25 million more likely to follow. Supporters consider it as an effective way to cross the city center and improve the existing lines of the city.
"I believe we do this work all the time from a technical point of view, so I'm not concerned with these aspects of the project." Johnson said. "I think the mayor is very focused on the details." She introduces them because she read KPMG's entire report.
"For me, this is an indication that she has clearly put his lawyer's hat and has other questions on these details, "continued Johnson." I do not have the same level of concern and I would like to think that it has some something to do with my two decades of experience in transportation. "
Keith Kyle, executive director of Seattle Subway, an organization's public transportation advocacy organization, saw a more negative reason for the actions of the mayor.
He pointed out the identical gauges of the two trams and wondered why the mayor's office said that the new trams were wider than the old ones
This is the beginning of the trams. a predetermined decision by the mayor's office to kill the project, "said Kyle. "We just have a lot of questions and everything comes back to the purpose of publishing this information right now, because we have a study that is supposed to come back soon." There is a project that exists. do we not get this information? "
