Yakima Trolleys Partial Win & Operating agreement! But more public comment on Feb 17…TBD

[SevaS...@hpev.com]

Hey all here’s an update on YVT (Yakima Valley Trolleys) 

Well the trolleys will live another day! (but future interurban status is still in limbo…) 

So first the good news! After MUCH public testimony and debating the Yakima City Council voted 6-to-1 in favor of renewing the YVT’s operating agreement with the city! So the trolley organization can once again get back to running the historic 600 volt DC locomotives and trolleys! 

So we can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief there, but the city’s financial deficit is still very bad and the council members were quite concerned about that since the trolley tracks add considerable cost to the paving operation. The city has enough money to pave the street without the trolleys but the difference in the cost if the trolley tracks are included is about 7million dollars.

The new mayor suggested a creative idea for turning 6th Ave into a One-Way street and making the paved area narrower so that the tracks could be in gravel instead of in the paved area to cut down in costs.

They are going to do some more exploring and then there will be another public comment and potential big decision on 6th Ave at the Tuesday February 17 City Council meeting.

But at least the trolleys are able to operate again and so we’ll take that as a win for these big EVs and I think the public testimony from so many SEVA folks helped immensely!

-THE EV ROADTRIP-

For Jan 20 we had a caravan of a Model X and CyberTruck. I would say thanks to Mark and Ryan for driving but I believe the reality is they just happened to be sitting in the driver’s seats and Tesla’s FSD Version 14+ was actually doing the driving 😎

HUGE thanks to all SEVA members and friends who have spoken or showed up to hold signs in the past including Erik Eskilson, Brian Hughes, Hans Larson and to everyone who did today!

The Jan 20th SEVA crew is shown below in front of the 1930 Brill Trolleys and pictured from left to right are: Charlie, Ryan, Mark, John, Ron & myself.

[Philip Skoog]

Great news and thanks for the well organized public input.   The gravel option sounds worth examination if it saves money and saves the trolley too.

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