I recently read x-council member’s public letter to the Seattle City Council about defunding the Central City Connector. My response is as follows. I hope you too will write and tell the council to NOT defund this connector. With this project completed the streetcar finally becomes a fully viable connector between disparate and often hard to travel to points within the city of Seattle. More information besides my letter below can be found here.

My letter:

Dear Seattle City Council,

I’m writing after hearing about and reading the alarming news about the possibility of the central city connector (streetcar extension to connect the two disparate lines) being defunded. As someone who just invested in becoming a full time and permanent Seattleite I do NOT want this defunded. This can and will be a frequent transportation connection that I used between Pioneer Square, South Lake Union, and Central City. Something that I and many other I work with in the startup community would use daily to connect with businesses in each of these areas.

I currently live in Ballard, and will be here for many years. I bike into the city everyday (I don’t pose more cost to our overburdened road network, it’s 17th street bike boulevard and then 15th street trail through the rail yards and into the city). With this being built it provides an easy, car-free way to deal with traveling between Amazon, Pike Place Market, Russell Investments Building, Pioneer Square, and even in some cases up to Capitol Hill. These are all places I do extensive business, and yes, there is *some* bus service, but this provides effective service through the area that is more convenient, more business friendly, and will work for our constituents where as current bus service does NOT work. Matter of fact, out of town visitors generally won’t use the bus service for a number of reasons.

So I ask you to please consider funding the central city connector fully and building this high quality piece of infrastructure that the city – and residents, new and old, will be able to make use of throughout the city.