In 2015, the Seattle City Council approved a $150 million project to build a streetcar track extension from South Lake Union to First Hill. Current ridership numbers on the existing route are about 5,600 riders per weekday. As is the norm with transit projects, the project cost has already ballooned to $286 million before they have even broken ground – this represents a 90% increase over the original estimate.

Cost isn’t the only problem with the project.

In order to justify the final price tag of $286 million, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) projects they will reach 22,000 weekday riders per day in the first year of service. That’s a 320% increase over today’s ridership numbers. They predict there will be an even greater 30,000 riders by 2035. They claim that this higher ridership will give them a 56% fare recovery instead of the 25% they have today.

However, that’s not going to happen. It’s impossible, and SDOT officals know it.

Each streetcar has 30 seats and between 40 and 140 spots for standing passengers. According to SDOT schedules, there are about 170 street cars run per day. That’s 85 in each direction. This gives us a maximum ridership capacity of 11,900 riders if every seat and 40 standing spots are used on every streetcar trip for the entire length of the track.

Of course, its unlikely SDOT is counting trips like this; typically, an agency will count partial trips to boost its numbers.

If we assume an optimistic average of a 40% full streetcar (remember, they run from 5am until 2am on weekdays) and three unique rides per route, we still only reach 14,000 riders. Of course a rider may not go the full length of the line and each passenger is counted separately.

These details have not been lost on one Seattle City councilmember, who voted against the expansion, saying it was just too expensive and that “the financial assumptions are simply unrealistic.”

Even SDOT itself admitted in 2018 that the “streetcar project is, perhaps, an example of poor management.” King County Metro piled on and stated SDOT’s estimated $16 million operating cost (that’s $9 per rider) is incorrect and would be closer to $24 million ($13 per rider). Since the fares are between $1 and $2.25, that’s a loss of $7-$11 per ride. No second guesses on who is picking up the tab on that.

Recent developments show that SDOT is seeing the writing on the wall and has cancelled its contract to buy 10 new cars, but is still pushing forward with the project.

Seattle officials continue to create expensive, inefficient systems to move people and goods around city streets.

Eventually, people and businesses will become tired of paying and may seek out other cities to spend their hard-earned dollars in. We are already seeing employers consider cities like Bellevue as an alternative, with relief from the transportation mess that Seattle officials are determined to create.

Seattle should consider real transportation solutions rather than relying on 18^th century technology that is costly and will not increase mobility in any substantial way.