However you spell it, Seattle’s new streetcar line provides downtown commuters with a viable alternative to driving.

Holiday shoppers at Westlake Center may have noticed something new outside of the stores this winter. At 12:12 p.m. on Dec. 12, the city of Seattle unveiled its newest electronic gadget, the streetcar. Running at 15-minute intervals between Westlake Center and the South Lake Union neighborhood, the new streetcar line promises a reliable, easy-to-use alternative to cars and busses.

With the arrival of the streetcar also came a study by Anne Vernez Moudon, UW professor of Urban Design, and Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC-UW), which explored how five additional streetcar lines (one of which would connect the University of Washington with the existing South Lake Union line) might be financed.

“They all have lots of merit,” Hallenbeck said. “What you really need to do is sit down with each district’s residents and business owners and see who is willing to stand up and foot the bill.”

For the South Lake Union neighborhood, finding the money was easy.

Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s newest venture, Vulcan Inc., is located in the neighborhood, prompting his interest in the area. Allen and 45 South Lake Union businesses, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, came up with half of the money needed to get the streetcar built by agreeing to an additional property tax.

Such were the origins of Seattle’s first electric streetcars, which replaced the much more cumbersome and short-lived horse-drawn variety, were an important part of local transportation from the late 1800s until the 1930s.

“Cities were crowded and not necessarily pleasant,” Hallenbeck said. “People lived near where they worked so it was noisy. Private developers who owned land by Green Lake wanted to open the area up to be sold for housing.”

To do this, the developers needed more reliable transportation to entice city dwellers to move to outlying areas ­— hence the streetcar. At the height of its popularity, around 1910, an interurban railway system stretched all the way from Everett to Tacoma. Expansions to Bellingham and Olympia were never completed. By 1941, the city had ripped up most of its streetcar tracks.

“These first streetcars did not do well financially,” Hallenbeck said, “but the main goal was to sell houses, anyways.”

Some streetcar opponents, like Seattle City Council member Nick Licata, have pointed out the South Lake Union line will primarily serve a select and limited group of citizens and take away bus service from outlying areas.

King County Metro Transit, which operates the streetcars, estimated that it would require 15,154 driver hours to operate the streetcars each year. According to Licata, this is up approximately 80 percent from the original estimate of 9,200 hours, given two years ago.

These are hours that could be used to keep cars out of the city to begin with.

Moudon points to many other ways in which streetcars are superior to buses, especially when it comes to intracity travel.

Not only are streetcars non-polluting, he said, but they also provide a more visible network, easier boarding (streetcars run level to the curb, so no wheelchair ramps need to be lowered) and stable cars, which provide a smoother, quieter ride.

The importance of style should not be underestimated, either, Hallenbeck said.

“Interestingly, in the case of South Lake Union, we’re going back to the future, in a sense,” Hallenbeck said, “Streetcars are now ‘new and cool’ again, whereas buses are now ‘old and stodgy.’”

[Reach reporter Christian Nelson at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]