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McGinn Challenges Mallahan on Streetcars
[caption id="attachment_13624" align="alignleft" width="391" caption="Mike McGinn"]
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At a press conference on First Hill this morning, mayoral candidate Mike McGinn reiterated his opposition to Mayor Greg Nickels' proposed First Avenue Streetcar and his support for the voter-approved First Hill Streetcar, but said he was agnostic on which of two proposed routes to First Hill made more sense.
"There’s a community process underway to decide on the alignment and... we should complete that process before we decide," McGinn said.
One route would travel up Boren and Madison and serve the thousands of hospital workers, students, elderly people, and others who live and work on First Hill; the other would travel up 12th Avenue and loop back down Broadway, bypassing Madison and Boren.
Advocates for the 12th Avenue route say that it would promote economic development along 12th, which is transitioning from a retail and residential dead zone into a dynamic urban corridor. Opponents of that proposal say that Sound Transit promised First Hill a streetcar in 2005, when the agency's board voted to eliminate the First Hill light rail stop, and note that traveling all the way around the one-way loop would add as much as 15 minutes to short trips from downtown to First Hill. McGinn said he had heard "good arguments for 12th and ... good arguments for the original route. I am not committing to a particular line before that process is complete."
McGinn noted that his opponent Joe Mallahan has said that he opposes all streetcars because he feels they're an inefficient use of money. But, he added, the voters have approved full funding for the First Hill streetcar, in the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure that passed last year. "The irony is that Mr. Mallahan supports building a tunnel on the waterfront that 70 percent of the voters opposed [the downtown Alaskan Way tunnel, which voters rejected in a nonbinding referendum in 2007], and opposes building a streetcvar line that 70 percent of the voters approved" last year, McGinn said.
Mallahan's spokeswoman, Charla Neuman, confirms that he opposes streetcars, but says "there's a difference between opposing something and stopping it. "If the city and state find out that we can do this without going over $120 milion, and they agree on a plan and it’s feasible, well, then it goes forward. We’re not McGinn. We don’t just blow things up." And Neuman says the tunnel voters opposed two years ago is a different proposal than the one currently being considered; "it's unfortunate that he just keeps spreading misinformation," she says.
Asked whether Seattle residents would be on the hook for cost overruns on the streetcar, as they may on the waterfront tunnel, McGinn said he wasn't sure, but that that was possible. However, he added that streetcars are "a much more mature technology than an experimental deep-bore tunnel—the largest ... of its kind in the world."
[/caption]At a press conference on First Hill this morning, mayoral candidate Mike McGinn reiterated his opposition to Mayor Greg Nickels' proposed First Avenue Streetcar and his support for the voter-approved First Hill Streetcar, but said he was agnostic on which of two proposed routes to First Hill made more sense.
"There’s a community process underway to decide on the alignment and... we should complete that process before we decide," McGinn said.
One route would travel up Boren and Madison and serve the thousands of hospital workers, students, elderly people, and others who live and work on First Hill; the other would travel up 12th Avenue and loop back down Broadway, bypassing Madison and Boren.
Advocates for the 12th Avenue route say that it would promote economic development along 12th, which is transitioning from a retail and residential dead zone into a dynamic urban corridor. Opponents of that proposal say that Sound Transit promised First Hill a streetcar in 2005, when the agency's board voted to eliminate the First Hill light rail stop, and note that traveling all the way around the one-way loop would add as much as 15 minutes to short trips from downtown to First Hill. McGinn said he had heard "good arguments for 12th and ... good arguments for the original route. I am not committing to a particular line before that process is complete."
McGinn noted that his opponent Joe Mallahan has said that he opposes all streetcars because he feels they're an inefficient use of money. But, he added, the voters have approved full funding for the First Hill streetcar, in the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure that passed last year. "The irony is that Mr. Mallahan supports building a tunnel on the waterfront that 70 percent of the voters opposed [the downtown Alaskan Way tunnel, which voters rejected in a nonbinding referendum in 2007], and opposes building a streetcvar line that 70 percent of the voters approved" last year, McGinn said.
Mallahan's spokeswoman, Charla Neuman, confirms that he opposes streetcars, but says "there's a difference between opposing something and stopping it. "If the city and state find out that we can do this without going over $120 milion, and they agree on a plan and it’s feasible, well, then it goes forward. We’re not McGinn. We don’t just blow things up." And Neuman says the tunnel voters opposed two years ago is a different proposal than the one currently being considered; "it's unfortunate that he just keeps spreading misinformation," she says.
Asked whether Seattle residents would be on the hook for cost overruns on the streetcar, as they may on the waterfront tunnel, McGinn said he wasn't sure, but that that was possible. However, he added that streetcars are "a much more mature technology than an experimental deep-bore tunnel—the largest ... of its kind in the world."
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