New York Times Revels in Streetcars


Updated, 8/18/08

Apparently, this article struck a cord in a number of place. The Overhead Wire blog has a catalog.

Original post, 8/14/08

Basking in the glow


0 responses to “New York Times Revels in Streetcars”

  1. Cincinnati has been extolling the virtues of streetcars for years, they want their own.

    Were going to go over this for ever apparently.

    STREET CARS WORK GREAT IF YOU LIVE ON A STREET CAR LINE! (especially if its F-R-E-E!)

    For all the other residents of a city or county, its:

    U-S-E-L-E-S-S!

    Its good for business, idiotic for transit.

  2. In addition to all the energy consumed to dig up the streets to plant the rails, and all the dust and dirt that is stirred up fouling the air in doing so, snailrail streetcars are too slow for high capacity transit. At $3 million per streetcar plus the escalating costs of construction, the concept of taxpayers continually subsidizing web of streetcars in Portland is totally ludicrous and cost prohibitive. This will be a reoccurring public debt for generations to come. Portland’s streetcar system plan needs to find the round file, dumped and be replaced with a more affordable electric trolley bus system plan that takes considerably less energy to construct and implement.

    As for the propaganda and claim that streetcars spur development adjacent to their routes; it is the tax breaks and property tax abatements handed out to developers like free candy by PDC and the City Council that are the incentives for development, not the streetcars.

  3. Let’s hope that a lot of these new streetcars are built here at Oregon Iron Works. Any idea, Chris?
    Hard not to like something that attracts private investment, is used and loved by the neighborhood, and produces little noise or pollution. I’m looking forward to the Eastside Loop and beyond.
    Go by Streetcar!

  4. More upscale welfare. Meanwhile the lower class gets to pay for it and little, or no services.

    MHW

  5. Lenny Anderson wrote: and produces little noise or pollution

    Ask the folks in Boardman how they feel about the pollution from that power plant that generates most of the power for Portland.

    Hard not to like something that attracts private investment, is used and loved by the neighborhood

    It’s easy not to like it. It’s because people outside of that neighborhood paid for it, and are being neglected by the City for their own needs.

    Further, the Pearl and SoWa got tax benefits so that the increased property tax revenues don’t get shared with the city as a whole that subsidized their projects, but they get to keep those tax revenues. Meanwhile, those of us in other parts of Portland see our property tax dollars going out of our neighborhoods and into downtown – while getting little in return.

    Yeah, winning the lottery is hard not to like. Having to run across five lanes of traffic because the city won’t fund sidewalk and crosswalk improvements, after deboarding an 18 year old bus that doesn’t have air conditioning? What’s to like about that?

    Subsidizing developers to fund over-priced condos (that are having a hard time selling), while being barely able to afford housing at half the price? Those tax breaks should be used for existing Portland residents to improve their homes (thus making neighborhoods more livable and increasing property tax values) but are instead used to funnel into a few select developers. What’s to like about that?

  6. Hey, capitalism sucks. I fought the class war thing for many years…we lost.
    Building and rebuilding neighborhoods takes time and money, and there are winners and losers. I helped gentrify neighborhoods in SF as well as Portland and came up a loser for it. The simple fact is making neighborhoods “attractive” attracts people with resources for good and evil.
    Last, the City does not pave unpaved, sidewalkless streets; I grew up on one in Multnomah, and we liked it just as it was (and still is.)
    If the City, yes with URA $, neighborhoods and the businesses along a potential streetcar route want to commit dollars to make it happen, why not cheer them on. Why the badmouthing? It works, people love it, and they are picking up most of the tab. Just be sure the URA gets dissolved after its 20 year run, so the dollars flow back to the rest of us.

  7. The prototype streetcar being constructed at Oregon Iron Works is provide is being funded whit taxpayer dollars through a congressional earmark. This is not capitalism, it is progressive socialism. Erik also made good point about the Pearl District and SOWHAT being progressive socialism.

  8. Long life reoccurring debt for generations to come to socialistically subsidize the streetcar operations and tax breaks for developers!

  9. Furthermore, in addition to the artificially high costs of energy, it is elitist environmentalism (such as taxpayer funded streetcar systems) that is fueling the highest level of inflation in 17 years.

  10. Just be sure the URA gets dissolved after its 20 year run, so the dollars flow back to the rest of us.

    Unfortunately, the PDC isn’t very motivated to do this, because it would represent a nice fat cut in their pork.

    Have they EVER retired a URA in Portland?

  11. Furthermore, in addition to the artificially high costs of energy, it is elitist environmentalism (such as taxpayer funded streetcar systems) that is fueling the highest level of inflation in 17 years.

    Yeah, I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with a big expensive war/occupation, or the mortgage bubble, or massive foreign debt. It’s those darned environmentalists again!

  12. Terry: The problem is that bicyclists aren’t paying their fair share for the roads they travel on, if they did then the Streetcar would make more sense.

  13. “It’s those darned environmentalists again”

    Yup – they make just about everything more expensive; paper and plastic bags at the grocery store, the costs for electricity produced at Boardman, ethanol added to gasoline that reduces fuel mileage thereby increasing fuel consumption that adds to the costs of driving, yearly excessive sewer rate increases to pay for a big crap pipe, mandates to retrofit or replace equipment and machinery such as garbage trucks before they are worn out that increases costs passed on to customers, distributing oversized recycle containers to all households and then raising garbage rates to pay for them – I could go on Bob, but I think you get the idea of what is happening here.

  14. Terry, et al.

    This is America. You either look after your brothers and sisters in this country like a real patriot, or you can be selfish pigs who count every penny that your are forced to give away and hold it against your neighbors. There’s a pretty famous book that details how we ought to be living with each other, and I’d place a wager that it’s sitting on your bookshelf, although perhaps a bit dusty.

    Keep counting those pennies, gents.

  15. MRB wrote: You either look after your brothers and sisters in this country like a real patriot, or you can be selfish pigs who count every penny that your are forced to give away and hold it against your neighbors. There’s a pretty famous book that details how we ought to be living with each other

    And that is exactly what happens when Portland continues to invest in more Streetcar and Light Rail projects.

    Those who support those projects ARE the “selfish pigs” who refuse to invest in region-wide investments (i.e. busses), holding those “pennies…against your neighbors”.

    We ought to be living together, building a truly comprehensive, regional transit system that doesn’t pit neighbors against each other, and doesn’t allow some to steal pennies from the others. Light rail is great, but it should never be done at the same time as stealing from the others. Like a true patriot, those neighbors who received their share of the light rail transportation money need to return the favor to those who haven’t received money in the past.

    The City of Portland, Metro, and TriMet need to make that priority #1.

    Unfortunately, that same book is probably collecting dust at the TriMet, Metro and City of Portland transportation libraries just as well.

  16. Erik –

    How on earth do you equate “people who support those projects” (light rail and streetcar) with those who “refuse to invest in region-wide investments (i.e. buses)”?

    Is there any regular poster on this blog who refuses to support bus projects?

    Just who are you talking about? If your criticisms are directly primarily at public officials, then please don’t lump everyone together in your invective.

    (MRB’s comment was out-of-line, and if I’d noticed it earlier I would have done something about it by now. Now that you’ve replied based on it, I’ll let both it and your comments stand. But please refrain from lumping everyone into your conspiracy theories in the future.)

  17. Bob R. wrote: How on earth do you equate “people who support those projects” (light rail and streetcar) with those who “refuse to invest in region-wide investments (i.e. buses)”?

    Bob, we’ve gone over this time and time again.

    Do you really need me to show, in excruciating detail, the amount of investment afforded to the bus system, when compared to the light rail (including Streetcar) system?

    Do you really need me to show cutbacks in bus capital spending; how MAX received funding that had been earmarked for bus capital spending; the decrease in bus service quality in the last 11 years?

    Do you really need me to point out the mass amount of “bus projects” listed on Metro’s and TriMet’s websites – oh wait, there are none.

    If you are seriously telling me that the forum here is fully in support of reinvestment in bus projects, then what is being done here to ensure that public officials (many of whom are politically connected to certain folks here) listen and make changes to public policy to ensure investment in the bus system? What advocacy is being done to reinvest in the bus system, after 11 years of disinvestment?

    Given that there are certain folks here who have clearly made remarks that are anti-bus (to avoid the forum’s prohibition on “personally directed comments” I will not name names), your comment that those folks simply don’t exist is not true – there is a very active group of people who gladly support light rail, in part using a philosophy that people don’t want busses. (Never mind that bus ridership is increasing faster than MAX ridership; and never mind the massive ridership increases in many bus-only transit systems.) I just went to a High Capacity Transit meeting where everyone was calling for better bus service. Yet Metro, the City of Portland, and TriMet apparently aren’t getting that message.

    And I don’t see a strong advocacy here at this forum, save for myself and a few select people. Simply saying that you’re for busses is not good enough.

  18. Simply saying that you’re for busses is not good enough.

    Nor was it good enough for you the last time I listed all of the meetings I’ve gone to, all of the advocacy I’ve done over the years, for bus service. I’m not playing that game with you again. No amount of evidence seems to pass your minimum standard.

    You very specifically equated “those who support” streetcar and light rail projects with “selfish pigs”. You can’t justify that, you didn’t attach any qualifiers, you lumped everyone together, and you can’t escape the fact that you said it.

  19. Given that there are certain folks here who have clearly made remarks that are anti-bus (to avoid the forum’s prohibition on “personally directed comments” I will not name names),

    Oh, there’s a copout. Nobody who posts regularly on this forum has ever made anti-bus remarks and you know it. “Personally directed comments” means calling me a “selfish pig” because I support light rail. It does not mean pointing out someone who made anti-bus statements. I suspect you know that too, and just needed a convenient way to dodge the fact that the “anti-bus” advocates you keep railing against don’t actually exist.

    Go ahead. Identify anyone who posts here who actually takes an anti-bus position, and back up your accusation with a link to something they’ve said that actually is anti-bus.

    I just went to a High Capacity Transit meeting where everyone was calling for better bus service.

    I was at that meeting, and I can attest that not “everyone” was calling for it, except to the extent that we were all on the same page as Metro in looking at Bus Rapid Transit, Light Rail, Rapid Streetcar and Commuter Rail as various possibilities in building a comprehensive High-Capacity network. Of course, if you think calling for BRT is “calling for better bus service,” guess what: Metro is doing that. So much for their being anti-bus.

  20. I, for one, am for better transit.

    And I don’t much care what sort of wheels are involved; that to me is an implementation detail.

    Local transit service is probably best served with busses; as they can run on existing infrastructure, and have lots of flexibility.

    Intercity rapid transit is probably best served with rail in an exclusive ROW. I remain unconvinced that exclusive busways are in any way a better option, unless you are re-dedicating an existing road to busway service, as was the case in Curitiba, Brazil. Certainly, the suggestion that came from some anti-rail folks that Chicago would be better served if the CTA replaced the dedicated “el” service with busways is fatuous nonsense.

    For stuff in between? It all depends. I think Portland should experiment with busways or buslanes, especially on established urban thoroughfares. (As for the CRC–how about laying down tracks embedded in concrete, so both busses and trains can cross in the exclusive transit lanes–much like MAX on the Steel Bridge?)

    As I mentioned in a previous post, before I went on vacation–I think that Erik’s beef isn’t really a bus-vs-rail issue, it’s a transit topology issue. What he seems to want is better service to and between neighborhoods, not higher capacity in certain corridors. That’s a goal probably better met by busses than streetcars, especially for routes that don’t need the higher capacity of a rail vehicle. But the bus-vs-rail question is really a side issue.

  21. I’d guess if a meeting were held and advertised as a “bus service meeting,” very few would attend. Most people just aren’t as interested as some of us here are about riding buses, or what can be done to negate the idea that you’re riding a bus vs. using a different mode of transit (or-gasp!-driving).

    So, IMO, we should attend the meetings on other modes of transit that we can… so we can voice an opinion that an option that can be implemented now is just fine, even if the long-range plan involves another mode of transit that will take a decade or two longer to plan, fund, and construct.

    At the meeting, staffers made a mention of several plans involving buses; including Metro’s RTP, which includes bus service plans; the TriMet TIP which discusses implementation (a document many of us here are already familiar with); and the Clark Co. HCT Project which recommends bus rapid transit there–they had looked at light rail until they were told no Clark Co. destinations currently meet federal guidelines for light rail construction funding.

    One of the maps that weren’t immediately available to the public in a take-home format were the maps that indicate current transit (including the almost open WES, the under construction MAX Green Line, and the still-in-planning Portland to Milwaukie MAX line), with faint, thin blue lines to indicate current Frequent Service bus routes. It clearly showed how, in particular, SE and NE Portland-proper west of I-205 have a majority of the Frequent Service bus routes.

    I found the map with the routing options buried in the link on the Metro HCT System Plan page here (1.6 MB)–yes, this is the map that should’ve been distributed as a separate handout at the meeting:
    http://www.oregonmetro.gov/files/planning/regional_hct_poster.pdf

    Maybe there should be a public campaign to let people know that they should support their local bus route vs. driving to MAX/WES Park & Rides. I once worked with someone who drove to MAX everyday until they realized a bus route ran right in front of their house. They were perfectly happy with bus service, but only after MAX riding experience.

  22. EngineerScotty wrote: What he seems to want is better service to and between neighborhoods, not higher capacity in certain corridors.

    I want both.

    The problem is, some areas get “higher capacity in certain corridors” while other corridors (again, I’ll use the example of the 12-Barbur bus line) get shafted.

    So while MAX riders get millions and millions in improvements, 12 line riders get late busses that frequently aren’t operated with TriMet’s newest busses at poor quality bus stops.

    Meanwhile, Metro is busy designing massive rail plans to Milwaukie (population: 20,920) and Lake Oswego (population: 36,345) – while Tigard (population: 46,715) gets nothing.

    If we look at a “population density” question, Milwaukie’s density is 4,358 people/square mile; Lake Oswego is 3,635 people/square mile, and Tigard is at 4,286. Even if Milwaukie’s population density justifies MAX, it does not justify Metro’s obsession with Streetcar to Lake Oswego while neglecting Tigard’s population and transit needs.

    Douglas K. wrote: Go ahead. Identify anyone who posts here who actually takes an anti-bus positionI was at that meeting, and I can attest that not “everyone” was calling for it

    Thanks for proving me right.

    Supporting BRT does not equate to support for bus service. Just like supporting light rail doesn’t support rail service in a broad sense (i.e. Amtrak, intercity high speed rail, etc.)

  23. Just as I figured … you can’t find anyone who’s anti-bus.

    But of course, you’re still going keep going on about some imaginary anti-bus bias on the part of various unidentified people, even without the slightest shred of evidence that it actually exists.

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