Trolleybuses in Seattle
The Seattle trolleybus system forms part of the public transportation network in the city of Seattle, Washington, operated by King County Metro. Originally opened on April 28, 1940, the network consists of 14 routes, with 174 trolleybuses operating on of two-way parallel overhead lines. As of, the system carries riders on an average of trips per weekday, comprising about 18 percent of King County Metro's total daily ridership.
Of the four trolleybus systems currently operating in the U.S., the Seattle system is the second largest, after the San Francisco system.
History
From tracks to tires
The first trolleybus to operate on Seattle's streets was in 1937. It was brought to the city for a demonstration to gain public support for a plan to replace the debt-ridden streetcar and cable car system with a "trackless trolley" system. The demonstration was a success, but still reeling from the impacts of the Great Depression, Seattle voters rejected the plan in a municipal election on March 9, 1937.In 1939, Seattle received a federal loan that allowed the city to retire the debts from the streetcar and cable car system. Management of system was turned over to an independent commission and renamed the Seattle Transit System. The commission immediately began construction on overhead wire and ordered 235 new trolleybuses, the first of which started arriving in March 1940.
The first trolleybus went into revenue service April 28, 1940, on route 13 which ran along 19th Avenue in Capitol Hill. The system expanded again during World War II, when the Office of Defense Transportation gave Seattle more trolleybuses to meet increased wartime transportation demands, bringing the fleet to 307 coaches. Ridership reached an all-time high 130 million riders in 1944. After the war, ridership on the trolleybus system declined as many American families began purchasing automobiles.
An uncertain future
The city's aging trolleybuses were spiffed up, and the overhead wire expanded in 1962 to serve the World's Fair, but citywide the Seattle Transit System was increasingly abandoning the trolley routes. One year later in 1963, the commission retired 175 trolleybuses and tore down the overhead wire in the north end of the city and West Seattle. A group of citizens protested the abandonment of the trolley routes with an initiative to voters in 1964, but it failed at the polls.By the end of the 1960s, the trolleybus system had been reduced to just 59 coaches operating on 30 miles of overhead wire. Seattle Transit System management defended the move claiming cost savings from using diesel-powered buses, the high cost of electrifying new routes and the lack of any new trolley coaches on the market. Under fire from the public, the commission ordered an independent study. That study contradicted the claims of management, concluding that trolleybuses perform better than diesel powered buses on Seattle's hills and that operating costs were comparable.
By 1970, the Seattle Transit System was facing mounting financial problems, leading voters to eliminate the commission and turn over operation of the system to the city. Voters spoke once again in 1972 when they approved the merger of the now city-owned Seattle Transit System and the privately held Metropolitan Transit Corporation into a single, countywide transit system under the auspices of the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle. Metro had promised voters that it would keep the trolleybus system if the transfer of the transit system to Metro was approved. There had been "prolonged and vocal opposition to the 1970 conversions" of routes 3 and 4 to motor buses, leading city officials to begin working to ensure that the system would survive under Metro. Furthermore, the city was interested in expanding the system, in light of the fuel shortages and price increases observed during the 1973 oil crisis, and in 1974 it formally asked Metro to add 27.5 route mile and up to 63 vehicles. The proposed expansion was later scaled-back slightly, but the final plan agreed to by the City and Metro would eventually see the system expand from 55 vehicles to 109 and from 32 route miles to 55 by 1981, in addition to replacement of all of the old fleet and infrastructure with new.
Rebirth of the trolleybus system
The new Metro Transit began operation on January 1, 1973, and in 1974 it began working on fleshing-out the plans to rehabilitate and expand Seattle's trolleybus network, hiring a consulting firm in 1975 to carry out the technical aspects of the design. On January 21, 1978, the system was shut down, and while passengers rode diesel-powered coaches, crews began installing new overhead wire, switches, and a new power distribution system. In 1977, Metro placed an order for 109 AM General trolleys, the first new trolleybuses for the city since the 1940s. The first of these was delivered in April 1979. The first routes were back in trolley service on September 15, 1979. Over the next two years, more routes were placed back into service as construction was completed and new coaches delivered. By the summer of 1981, the entire trolley system was back up and running.In addition to modernization, the 1978–1981 rebuilding included expansion, resurrecting several closed routes and adding a long, new route to Ballard. These included former routes 3-North Queen Anne – Jefferson Park and 4-East Queen Anne – Montlake, which STS had closed in 1970. The Downtown-to-Queen Anne portions of those routes were reinstated with the same route numbers. The Jefferson Park trolleybus route was reinstated as route 1, connected to route 1-Kinnear, but extended from Spokane Street to Dawson Street, farther south than the old route had run. The former route 4-Montlake was revived as route 43, Downtown–Montlake–University District and extended west with a new, never-before-existing section of trolleybus route between the University District and Ballard. Former route 9-Broadway was also replaced by route 7 and extended across the University Bridge to the University District, returning trolleybus service to much of former route 7-15th Avenue NE, which had been abandoned as a trolleybus service in 1963. Other corridors were also considered but ultimately rejected for trolleybus service, including Aurora Avenue. The reconversion of route 7 and conversion of route 43 to trolleybuses reinstated trolleybus operation across the University Bridge and Montlake Bridge, from which it had been removed in 1963 and 1970, respectively. Since 1984, with the closure of the 1911 Cambie Street Bridge in Vancouver, these two drawbridges have been the only movable bridges in the Western Hemisphere still crossed by trolleybuses.
By 1981, Metro started to consider the future of the remaining 1940s trolleybuses, which had been in storage since the beginning of the system rehabilitation in 1978. A group of employees founded the Metro Employees Historic Vehicle Association in December 1981 to preserve, restore and operate some of the vintage coaches. Under the agreement, Metro maintained ownership of the historic fleet, providing insurance coverage, storage space, work space and spare parts on an 'as available' basis. The first trolleybus to be restored by MEHVA was 1944 Pullman-Standard No. 1005, and regular public excursions around the trolleybus system with No. 1005 began in 1985. In the summer of the following year, MEHVA scheduled three four-hour excursions and six one-hour trips, but the number was much smaller in subsequent years, with three or four per year. Since the early 1990s, MEHVA has normally operated two vintage-trolleybus excursions per year: a four-hour daytime trip and a 2 ½-hour evening trip, and this pattern continues as of 2017. Operation of historic trolleybuses has also taken place for special events, such as the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Seattle trolleybus system, in April 2000. In the years since MEHVA has continued to add additional trolley and motor buses to the historic fleet.
Sixty-foot-long articulated trolleybuses were added to the fleet in 1986–87. The 46 coaches, designed by MAN of West Germany and built at a North Carolina MAN plant, were assigned to the busy routes 7 and 43, equivalent to present-day routes 7, 49, 43 and 44, all of which continue to use articulated trolleybuses today. These were the first articulated trolleybuses in North America, other than single experimental vehicles or manufacturer demonstrators on loan, and they began to enter service in April 1987.
The construction of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel under 3rd Avenue beginning in 1986 forced many of the trolleybus routes to be rerouted to 1st Avenue for several years. Once construction was finished, the trolleybuses returned to Third Avenue and the tunnel opened on September 15, 1990. The tunnel introduced the dual-mode Breda DuoBus 350 coaches that operated on overhead wire underground, which drove the center axle, and diesel on the surface, which drove the rear axle.
File:Breda dual-mode bus at Pioneer Square station in Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel 1994.jpg|thumb|left|One of the 236 Breda dual-mode buses that operated as trolleybuses inside the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel from 1990 to 2005
The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle was disbanded in 1994 after the public voted to merge it with the King County government. After the merger, Metro Transit became a division of King County's Department of Transportation.
In September 1997, King County Metro expanded the trolleybus system, electrifying Route 70 between downtown and the University District via Eastlake Avenue E. The $19 million project, primarily funded by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration, was the first modern expansion of trolley wire and incorporated public art as required by city ordinances.
Between 2001 and 2003, Metro purchased 100 Gillig Phantom coaches to replace the AM General trolleys. These coaches were delivered as "gliders," meaning that while they looked complete from the outside, internally the coach lacked a propulsion system. Metro removed the motors, propulsion controls and other components from the AM General trolleys, sent them to Alstom to be refurbished and then reinstalled them into the new Gillig bodies along with new fiberglass trolley poles from Vossloh Kiepe. The repurposing of the propulsion system from the AM General trolleybuses saved $200,000 per coach, totaling $20 million for the entire fleet.
After the Breda coaches used in the transit tunnel were replaced by hybrid electric buses, Metro converted 59 coaches into electric-only trolleybuses between 2004 and 2007. As a part of the conversion, Metro removed the diesel motors from the coaches and installed new Vossloh-Kiepe current collection equipment, fiberglass trolley poles to replace the steel poles, new interior upholstery, a new driver's compartment, and new LED destination signs to replace the flip-dot signs and LED turn signals and tail lights to replace incandescent ones. These converted Breda coaches were renumbered 4200-4258 and replaced the aging MAN articulated trolleybuses.
The unique fleet of converted Breda coaches and Gillig coaches with recycled 1979 propulsion systems saved money for Metro in the early 2000s, but after a decade on the streets of Seattle the buses became less reliable and more expensive to maintain. By the end of the decade, Metro started to look at purchasing an all-new trolley fleet.