Is the Seattle streetcar a social justice issue?

The Seattle streetcar project that would connect South Lake Union line to the First Hill line is on hold after an audit revealed that it’s $100 million over-budget, and the streetcars may not even fit the tracks. As the city decides what to do next, a group of activists in The Seattle Times argued that this is a social justice cause, and that we should absolutely move forward with the project.

RELATED: New Seattle streetcars may be too big for city’s existing tracks

President of Pike Brewing Company Charles Finkel is one of co-authors of the Times piece, and discussed it on KTTH’s Jason Rantz Show. In the piece he argued that the project would serve “an equitable access to opportunity and services” for low-income people.

“It’s not only 1.2 miles of track, but it connects Capitol Hill with South Lake Union, which is several more miles,” Finkel said. “And it would provide those people with access to jobs, to go from one end of the city to the other, provide them with recreation, and generally make our city more mobile.”

While Finkel is heavily critical of the cost-overruns and the city’s general managing of the streetcar project, he still believes it should go ahead. The Seattle streetcar project was stopped by Mayor Jenny Durkan earlier this year as costs continued to balloon. An outside auditor was brought in to investigate the project. It was discovered that not only had the project grown to $252 million (originally slated for $143.2 million), the new streetcars that Seattle ordered won’t fit the existing gauge of rail in the city.

“Had we had the attitude that if there’s a cost over-run, we couldn’t do it, we wouldn’t have built the tunnel, we wouldn’t have built the I-90 bridge, the waterfront, the convention center–everything is over-budget, it’s the nature of things.”

Finkel believes that the ultimate benefits outweigh the costs, and that we need to see passed recent mistakes to the greater picture for Seattle transportation.

“I don’t have much confidence in our bureaucracy anyway,” Finkel said. “But you’ve got to presume that someone had a good idea, that they’ve already made a huge investment, and that not continuing that investment and not connecting the two lines would exacerbate the failing of the city council, or whoever makes the decision on the light rail.”

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