The Commuter Frontier: Rails Extend to Lake Washington
A New Year’s Day opening of the Rainier Avenue Electric Line promises to transform suburban residential life along the lake.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Rainier Avenue Electric Line is now (this New Year's day) opened for traffic. Its course is southeasterly to Lake Washington. This event makes available, for the first time, a large section unsurpassed for attractiveness. The region along the lake is destined to become extremely valuable on account of its peculiar desirability for suburban residences. This fact will be appreciated when the people become acquainted with it as they now will be able to do. Of course, values will advance. There will be a 'scramble' for holdings.
“The region along the lake is destined to become extremely valuable on account of its peculiar desirability for suburban residences.”
This 1891 report on the Rainier Avenue Electric Line captures the exact moment transit infrastructure began driving the suburban sprawl that defines modern Seattle. Just as developers in 1891 anticipated a 'scramble' for lakefront land, today's transit expansion projects continue to dictate the city's housing density and affordability debates.
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