Smell the future! Five reasons to ride the Seattle Streetcar

Here are five reasons you should ride the South Lake Union Trol... er, Seattle Streetcar today:

1. It has that New Streetcar Smell, and should have it for another week or so, when that Wet Yuppie Smell will set in. Hurry down there and get a whiff of the new while you're able.

2. There is no other place in this town where you can wear your "Ride the S.L.U.T." T-shirt without the very real danger of getting dressed down by justifiably angry feminists and humorless, hyperaggressive sensitive males. Let me amend that: You can also wear your shirt at Kapow! Coffee, the terrific little coffee shed where the shirts originated -- but it's a pretty small place and it can only accommodate maybe a dozen S.L.U.T. lovers at a time. And that's it; that's the last time I'm employing that pun in this piece. Thank you and good night! Tip your server.

3. Rides are free until Jan. 1. After that, you can use your Metro bus pass or transfer to get on the trolley, or you can pay a buck-fifty. It's really not a big deal, getting on the streetcar, and it's almost more expensive not to ride the thing.

4. The Trolley makes several worthwhile stops. If you board at Westlake Center -- a connection point for both the Westlake Center bus tunnel and the Seattle Center Monorail, dontcha know -- you can roll down to Tutta Bella or Stix for pizza and cocktails. You can pick up groceries at Whole Foods. You can grab a Blue Moon Burger or an Uptown Espresso. You can get your shanty on at the Center for Wooden Boats. You can shop for stylish relics at Antique Liquidators. You can visit Glazer's, Jillian's or Daniel's. And if you don't mind walking one lousy block, you can hit the swank (but egalitarian) Russian-style bathhouse Banya 5, suck down infused vodkas at the intimate Venik Lounge or relax in Lake Union Park, which the city is currently transforming into a worthy swath of green space.

Yeah, sure, you could also walk to these spots. The streetcar doesn't go all that fast and it's really not that far of a jaunt from Westlake Center to South Lake Union (and it's all downhill). But if you're one of those "it's the journey, not the destination" types, the streetcar is a pretty rewarding way of getting to the neighborhood -- even more so than Metro route 17, which is the crown prince of Seattle's city buses.

5. It's what we've got right now. I wish this piece were about Seattle's shiny new monorail line or the awesome light-rail line to the airport, but one is vaporware and the other won't be completed until after the advent of flying cars.

The streetcar isn't terribly practical, but it does serve one unexpected purpose: It's something of a gateway drug. On my streetcar ride (I managed to get on the second car out), I talked with a pair of women who never take the bus but were immediately enamored of the streetcar. "It's so much cleaner than the bus," one said. "And it smells so nice."

Between New Streetcar Smell and a huge public transit network, one hopes, lies obsession.

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