Seattle Municipal Street Railway

Seattle Municipal Street Railway
Seattle Municipal Street Railway
	Seattle Street Railway's first streetcar at Occidental Avenue and Yesler Way with Mayor John Leary and city officials in the fall of 1884
Operation
Locale	Seattle, Washington
Horse-drawn era: 1884–1889
Owner(s)	Various (1884–1889)
Operator(s)	Various (1884–1889)
Propulsion system(s)	Horse
Cable car era: 1888–1940
Owner(s)	Various (1888–1919); Seattle Municipal Street Railway (1919–1940);
Operator(s)	Various (1888–1919); Seattle Municipal Street Railway (1919–1940);
Propulsion system(s)	Cable
Electric streetcar era: 1889–1941
Lines	26 streetcar lines (1936)
Owner(s)	Various (1889–1919); Seattle Municipal Street Railway (1919–1941);
Operator(s)	Various (1889–1919); Seattle Municipal Street Railway (1919–1941);
Track length (total)	231 miles (372 km) (1936)

Map of the Puget Sound Traction, Power & Light Company's Seattle division in 1914, five years before taken over by the Seattle Municipal Street Railway

The Seattle Municipal Street Railway was a city-owned streetcar network that served the city of Seattle, Washington and its suburban neighborhoods from 1919 to 1941. It was a successor to the horse-drawn Seattle Street Railway established in 1884, and immediate successor to the Puget Sound Traction, Power and Light Company's Seattle division. The first service with electric streetcars began on March 30, 1889.^[1]^: 16 In 1898, Stone & Webster began forming the system out of smaller lines, the oldest of which had roots from 1884.

By 1900, Stone & Webster, had amalgamated 22 lines and gained a 40-year operating franchise under a new power and transport utility, the Seattle Electric Company. The system also included cable car lines on Madison Street and Yesler Way. By the end of 1900, the City Council, under public pressure, forced Seattle Electric to provide free transfers between lines, and reduced their lease to 35-years.^[2] In 1907, Stone & Webster also acquired the lease to the Everett streetcar system, and in 1912 it combined all of its transit and utility holdings in the area under a new company, the Puget Sound Traction, Power and Light Company (PSTP&L).^[1] Years later, stripped of its rail lines, this became Puget Sound Energy.

On March 31, 1919, the city of Seattle purchased the entire Seattle division of PSTP&L's street railways, but the acquisitions were on terms which left the transit operation in financial trouble.^[1] In 1939, a new transportation agency, the Seattle Transit System, was formed, which refinanced the remaining debt and began replacing equipment with "trackless trolleys" (as then known) and motor buses. The final streetcar ran on April 13, 1941. Seattle Transit, in turn, was absorbed by King County Metro in 1973.^[3]

A modern streetcar system debuted in 2007, with the introduction of the South Lake Union Streetcar. It has since been expanded to include a second line, the First Hill Streetcar, which will be extended downtown to connect the two lines.

References[]

^ ^a ^b ^c Kershner, Jim (2019). Transit: The Story of Public Transportation in the Puget Sound Region. HistoryLink, Documentary Media. pp. 16, 28, 32, 37. ISBN 9781933245553. OCLC 1084619121.
^ Crowley, Walt (1993). Routes : An Interpretive History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle. Seattle: Crowley Associates. p. 16.
^ Crowley, Walt (February 10, 2000). "Street Railways in Seattle". historylink.org. Retrieved February 16, 2017.