Trolley Thursday 2/20/20 - Seattle Municipal Street Railway

One advantage of having your own municipal street railway is that the commuters have more control over the system rather than having a private company dictate the schedules and do as they please. However, street railways are inherently a black hole depending on government subsidies and taxpayer money (through bonds and tax bills) to stay afloat. When Seattle was faced with such a black hole, they did the only thing any city in the same situation would do: replace with buses. Welcome to today's Trolley Thursday coverage of the Seattle Municipal Street Railway (or Seattle MUNI).

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Mayor Ole Hanson rides across University Bridge on the Seattle
MUNI's inauguration, July 1, 1919.
(Seattle Municipal Archives)

The first municipal streetcar would run in Seattle on July 1, 1919, when Mayor Ole Hanson (who negotiated the system purchase) drove across the University Bridge to dedicate what was seen as Seattle's victory over private transit companies. The Seattle MUNI was certainly widespread as it owned 3 cable car lines and 26 different streetcar lines. However, there was a problem: The city screwed up in buying the streetcar.

A Seattle car to Mt. Baker discovers just how screwed up
the MUNI system is, financially and can't take it anymore
(The Seattle Times)

There were many factors that made the Seattle MUNI one of the most financially screwed-up streetcar systems in America: The State Supreme court had blocked providing subsidies that other municipal systems were usually approved for, causing the MUNI to run on fares alone, and bonds were out of the question as automakers lobbied for bond houses to deny the city any means of sustaining itself. 

The problem was so severe that two subsequent mayors after Ole Hanson, Bertha Knight Landes and Frank Edwards, lost their respective campaigns as the city was massively divided over how to get their money back. Not much information exists in the period between 1920 and 1936, unfortunately, so it can be inferred the system ran as normal, but was losing money badly. In fact, by 1936, the system was running an operation deficit of $4 Million ($74 million in 2020 dollars) against a pitiful $3.9 million farebox profit ($72 million in 2020 dollars). By this time, city also owned a motley mix of 410 streetcars over 231 miles of track and 60 buses/stages on 18 routes.

A builder's photo of a new Seattle Transit electric bus, 1940
(Historylink.org)

The buses were a point of contention for Seattle commuters, fearing that bus replacement would irreperably harm the level of service the public streetcars already set. A city plan was put to a vote on March 9, 1937, offering that all 26 streetcar lines gradually convert to trolley bus operation. However, it was soundly rejected after then-Mayor John Dore, a significant chunk of citizens, and labor groups all kicked John C. Beeler (head of an engineering firm hired by Seattle to soothe their transit woes) to the curb. A brief victory for the streetcars, but it would also be a phyrric victory.

Following the failure of the Beeler Plan, Seattle's electric railways fell into a death spiral with the closure of many interurban and street lines. The Seattle, Renton and Southern interurban line, which was developed by Frank Osgood as the first interurban railway in Puget Sound, closed in 1938 after the city council refused to both renew its franchise and allow the company to pave over a dangerous bit of track through downtown Renton known as the "Thoroughfare of Death", which caused many problems for cars and pedestrians.

The infamous "Thoroughfare of Death": unpaved tracks
inbetween paved roads through downtown Renton
(Historylink.org)

The line to Everett, under Stone and Webster's North Coast Lines (which handled bus and rail traffic in Western Washington) was shut in 1939 and its Niles wooden interurbans (which dated from 1910!) were sent for scrap. In 1940, the cable cars between Lake Washington and Elliot Bay were shut down too, and Seattle was just about ready to lose its mind over the constant loss in money. Around this time, the Seattle MUNI would be rebranded as "Seattle Transit".

Thankfully, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal stepped in, via the Reconstruction Finance Company, to loan a cool $10.2 million ($189 million in 2020 dollars) to the city of Seattle to completely relieve them of their streetcar operations. Thanks to the efforts of Mayor Arthur Langlie, Stone and Webster's mortgages were paid off and the Beeler Plan (now revised) was put into place. All remaining interurban and streetcars were sold for scrap, along with rails and other infrastructure, while the wires would be repurposed for trolley bus use. The last car would run on 8th Avenue in Ballard, Seattle, on April 13, 1941.

A sadly-leaning Seattle MUNI car trundles along Ballard Avenue, 1940
(Historylink.org)

Seattle would not have a new streetcar system until 1982 with the opening of the George Benson Memorial Waterfront Streetcar, nor would it have a dedicated transit system until 2007, with the opening of the South Lake Union Trolley. (Hehehe...) The Municipal Street Railway would be rebranded into Seattle Transit in 1939, which folded into King County Metro in 1973. Between that time, the only big transit shakeup in Seattle was the iconic World's Fair Monorail.

The Seattle Monorail and Space Needle in the 1960s,
with no street tracks for over 20 years
(VintagePackRat)

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Thanks for reading today's Trolley Thursday post! Next week, we finish off February by looking at the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar (which, incidentally, is the first trolley line I ever actually saw on video) and the South Lake Union Trolley (hehehe... sorry, I'll stop laughing). Until then, ride safe everyone!