Funny!

Report: Seattle Residents Awaiting Arrival of SLUT Trolleys
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A new trolley line in Seattle has residents buzzing about its supposedly salacious name.

Officially, the new line along the downtown waterfront is the South Lake Union Streetcar, but that's only after its first name, the South Lake Union Trolley, or SLUT, was changed, locals told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Vulcan, the developer of the former Cascade neighborhood, said that the SLUT acronym is just an urban legend, but it seems here to stay, the paper reports.

"We're welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood," Jerry Johnson, 29, a part-time barista at Kapow! Coffee house told the Post-Intelligencer. The local haunt already has sold out its first run of "Ride the SLUT" T-shirts.

Gregg Hirakawa, a spokesman for the Seattle Department of Transportation, told the paper the term "streetcar" was selected because it sounded more modern than "trolley."

The first cars were to be unveiled Tuesday and the line should be up and running in December, the paper said.

VERY funny! Saw the story on CNN earlier this afternoon and had a good laugh. BTW, the trollops...er, I mean, "trolleys" looked darn good. Should be a boon to Seattle...but I think they should keep the original moniker. Oh, the marketing!

I can just see it now.

Guy comes home after having a couple, and wants to know where hes been. He replies, its not my fault I'm late, the slut took too long.

Only because of an over-abundance of new passengers.

So THIS is what the $1.6 BILLION RTA we voted in back in 1996 has amounted to? A REGIONAL trolley/street car servicing only South Lake Union?

Yep, your tax dollars at work. I got scorned and ridiculed for voting against it back in 1996 when I lived up there, and I told people then that it would be a giant white elephant, a multi-billion dollar noose around the neck of King County.

Who's the sucker now, clowns?

I thought the RTA was Sound Transit as a whole.
Or was that the (derailed) regional monorail?
They have so many transit districts up there, it's tough to keep track.

I don't think there is anything "Sound" about it!

Hold on a sec there guys . . . if you've ever spent a minute stuck in Seattle traffic, anything spent on alternative transportation systems is SOUND.

"I thought the RTA was Sound Transit as a whole."

Correct.

It was created when the proposal was voted in back in 96. The premise was to create a network of commuter rail, light-rail and extend the monorail, as well as more HOV lanes across the I-90 and 520 bridges, as well as a new 520 bridge altogether. $1.6 BILLION was the price tag, and the People's Republic of King County ate it up. (Folks, if you think things are liberal down here, live up there for a while! hah)

What has been completed thus far:

-SOME commuter rail in the South Sound area, Tacoma up through Federal Way into south King County.

-Light-Rail into downtown is being constructed at this moment, 11 years after the funding was approved.

No more HOV lanes. No more 520 bridge (which is DESPERATELY needed). They ran out of money for the Monorail extension to West Seattle, so they voted in a fee increase in King County for license plate renewals, which was over $100 per year PER CAR. People got so fed up they started licensing their cars out of county. They scrapped the monorail extension idea altogether.

While MAX isn't perfect by any means, count your lucky stars that we DO have it down here. It could be much worse, we could be in Seattle's model. At least people down here had the foresight to put it in BEFORE the population explosion. Seattle did nothing, and is suffering mightily now.

I kind of like Max, I spend at least 2 hrs per day on it. And although I do a lot of work, on my laptop and read books, you get to watch some very strange/interesting people. If they would just control those darn bike riders, that clutter up the aisles, and make it insafe for everyone.

Wonder if you'll have to pay the SLUT extra to ride all the zones.

This is kinda funny... of all the transit districts in King Co. (Metro, S.T., however many other "partnerships" and private companies), this streetcar is a City of Seattle project:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/stcar_slu.htm
Screams "Portland Streetcar" all the way.