Residents have tart name for trolley

SEATTLE – Officially it’s the South Lake Union Streetcar. Within the old Cascade neighborhood, part of the area to be served by the new line, it’s popularly known as the South Lake Union Trolley – or SLUT.

At Kapow! Coffee, 100 T-shirts bearing the words “Ride the SLUT” sold out in days and another 100 are on order.

“We’re welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood,” said Jerry Johnson, 29, a part-time barista.

Trolley tracks have been laid from downtown along Westlake Avenue to Lake Union and project officials say the $50.5 million project should be completed and streetcars running in December

Some claim – incorrectly, according to representatives of Vulcan Inc., a company owned by billionaire Paul G. Allen that is developing the area – that South Lake Union Trolley was the original name and it was changed when officials realized the acronym.

Underlying the lightheartedness is resentment over changes in the old working-class neighborhood north of the downtown area.

“There was a meeting with representatives from the city several years ago,” Johnson recalled. When the representatives asked what they could do for the neighborhood, “most people raised their hands and said, ‘Affordable housing,’ ” he said. “Then the people from the city huddled together – ‘whisper, whisper, whisper,’ – and they said, ‘How about a trolley?’ “

Since then Cascade has been ignored in Vulcan brochures that lump the neighborhood together with Denny Park and Denny Triangle under the term South Lake Union.

With the streetcar, said Don Clifton, a Cascade resident, “We learned how fun it is to change the name of things.”