Stories like this one makes me so proud to be from Seattle.

Really.

“I think Seattle’s known for empowering people and I think that’s why we want to get behind this project.

Mayor Nickels, thank you for our SLUT.”-

Don Clifton

By Seattle P-I & KOMO Staff

SEATTLE — Officially it’s the Seattle 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” are selling quickly at $10 each.

“We’re welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood,” said Jerry Johnson, 29, a part-time barista. They’re selling almost as many shirts as lattes.

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 which is developing the area – that South Lake Union Trolley was the original name and that it was changed when officials belatedly 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.

“They asked us, ‘What we could do for you?’ 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.

Beth Dube came to the coffee shop on Tuesday to buy shirts for people in her office down the street. They’ve dealt with the construction mess every day and want a piece of the action.

“We exercise around our work campus a lot and so we’ll just have ’em out, loud and proud,” she said.

Others who call South Lake Union home couldn’t pass on the chance to display their T-shirts as the mayor unveiled the new vehicle, which he calls a streetcar.

“We’ve got the waterfront trolley, the old cars from Melbourne, historic in nature,” Mayor Greg Nickels said. “This is different, it’s a bigger vehicle.”

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

“I think Seattle’s known for empowering people and I think that’s why we want to get behind this project. Mayor Nickels, thank you for our SLUT.”

Nickels was easy going about the whole thing.

“People can call it whatever they like as long as they ride it,” he said.