Another embarrassing setback for Seattle streetcar

The city of Seattle is asking for nearly $1 billion in levy fees for an ambitious transportation plan to get people out of cars, yet, embarrassingly, they can’t get their First Hill Streetcar up and running neither on time nor on budget.

We learned this week that the streetcar is delayed yet again.

Originally intended to begin operating in early 2014 (about two years after the project began), now, to save themselves from more embarrassment, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) director Scott Kubly won’t even give the public an updated start date.

This, after the revised 2015 start date came and went.

“(We’re) not putting out a starting date until we’re confident,” Kubly told KING 5, which reports the delay is due, in part, to “water damage in the inverters” for all seven cars. I wonder what stopped them from putting out start dates over the last year?

Related: Oppose Seattle transportation plans? You want people dead!

To be fair, many of the problems originate with the manufacturer, but understand this is the manufacturer that SDOT chose to do business with.

SDOT and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray want almost $1 billion to fund projects over a 10-year period, yet they can’t get a 2.5-mile project up and running that will be well over a year and a half late (possibly even more).

They want to fund a streetcar system that connects through downtown Seattle by 2020 and an extension for a Capitol Hill streetcar. The cost? $112 million and $24.5 million respectively. What confidence can anyone have that these projects will happen on schedule or on budget? You shouldn’t have confidence, which is exactly why I’ll proudly vote ‘no’ on the Move Seattle levy. They haven’t earned our money.

And the truth is, I’m actually a fan of the concept of streetcars (and lightrail) and would happily fund it if SDOT wasn’t so incompetent. During a vacation to Europe earlier this year, I used transit almost exclusively (when I wasn’t walking) and loved it; they planned it right.

But this administration can’t deliver what they promise; and what they do deliver is sub-par (and in some cases, dangerous to the user). Which is bizarre. They have an ideological agenda to get you out of cars that they’re hell-bent on achieving, yet they can’t even support the projects they want us to abandon cars over.

SDOT’s Scott Kubly (and by extension, Mayor Murray), seem to adhere to the position: “over promise, and under-deliver.” What a shame.