Stimulate the Streetcar Loop


Stimulus Watch is a volunteer-created web site to allow citizens to rate projects that are candidates for stimulus funds.

Unfortunately, anti-streetcar activists appear to be voting down the Streetcar Loop project.

Please take a moment to register your support for the Loop:

http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/view/14694


23 responses to “Stimulate the Streetcar Loop”

  1. Thanks for posting the link. In a time of economic crisis and slashing bus routes, this is the last thing we need. I voted no. This isn’t the right time for it.

  2. I’m curious, Chris. According to that site, the streetcar project is supposed to create 600 jobs. Do you have any idea how that number was calculated, and over what period of time those jobs are expected to exist?
    In a time of economic crisis and slashing bus routes, this is the last thing we need. I voted no. This isn’t the right time for it.
    In a time of economic crisis, “600 jobs” is exactly what we need … if they pay reasonably well and last longer than a few months. A deep recession/depression is precisely the “right time” for these kind of projects.

  3. A deep recession/depression is precisely the “right time” for these kind of projects.

    Who’s gonna get the jobs?
    I bet its not the un/underemployed.

  4. Something that is lost in the conversation, as far as I understand it, is that this is not a question about whether money should be spent on the streetcar or on other projects in Portland, but rather, whether the streetcar in Portland is worthy of receiving Federal stimulus money which is targeted to transit projects. In other words… denying stimulus funding to the streetcar will not open it up to another project in Portland, but rather to another comparable project elsewhere. Is this an accurate assessment?

  5. In a time of economic crisis, “600 jobs” is exactly what we need … if they pay reasonably well and last longer than a few months. A deep recession/depression is precisely the “right time” for these kind of projects.

    So we should just print money to hire people and build a streetcar line in an area that already has 3 (soon to be4) MAX lines, a bunch of buslines. Yeah, makes sense to me.

    Seems like no one is worried about repaying all of this.

  6. I think the answer is if not Streetcar in Portland, then some other transit project somewhere else. Streetcar is ready to go, is in final design, and is supported by neighborhoods and businesses with money as well as words. No Portland project on the boards is more worthy of funding and construction than the extension of Streetcar, a very successful project by all measures…ridership, private investment, accessibility, and fun.

  7. Seems like no one is worried about repaying all of this.
    I’m always worried about how to repay it. But there are two situations where deficit spending is a responsible choice: a depression or an unavoidable war. If we’re not in a depression yet, we’re heading that way fast.

    As for how to pay for all of this, that’s easy: raise taxes once the economy recovers. Good luck getting the tax-cut-zombie Republicans to go along with it, though.

  8. I’m curious, Chris. According to that site, the streetcar project is supposed to create 600 jobs. Do you have any idea how that number was calculated, and over what period of time those jobs are expected to exist?

    I’m told that number was arrived at simply by multiplying the dollars in the project ($147M total, including the local match) by a generally accepted factor for jobs/$1M. Since the Loop would open in 2011, the jobs would be between mid-2009 and mid-2011.

  9. Something that is lost in the conversation, as far as I understand it, is that this is not a question about whether money should be spent on the streetcar or on other projects in Portland, but rather, whether the streetcar in Portland is worthy of receiving Federal stimulus money which is targeted to transit projects. In other words… denying stimulus funding to the streetcar will not open it up to another project in Portland, but rather to another comparable project elsewhere. Is this an accurate assessment?

    My understanding is that only two projects in this region are eligible for the portion of the funds ($750M I believe) that is required to be obligated in the next 90 days. The two projects are the Streetcar Loop and the Green Line.

    [The Green Line in fact already has a full funding grant agreement with the FTA, so all that might happen there is that TriMet would get reimbursed from stimulus money rather than regular annual appropriations – it would not change the dollars flowing to the region, just the timing.]

    So it’s correct to say that if the Loop does not get $75M from the stimulus, those dollars will go to some other region.

  10. So it’s correct to say that if the Loop does not get $75M from the stimulus, those dollars will go to some other region.

    Then there is no good argument NOT to try to get the money.

    As long as they can operate it WITHOUT cutting already existing services.

    And that has to be guaranteed!

  11. Sure, it’s just a web poll, but I voted no.

    I want to be on a streetcar that will move efficiently, not subject to being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on *HIGHWAY 99E*! (aka Grand and MLK)

    Hey I know, let’s build a streetcar across the Fremont Bridge, who cares what the traffic level’s like. ;) Surely there isn’t bumper-to-bumper traffic there!

  12. In case anyone missed it, everything on there is just a proposal, it was not necessarily included in the final stimulus package.

    There’s also some very bad mistakes that have been found on the site, like the City of Natchez, Mississippi’s supposed $600 million for a heritage trail. (Turns out it was $600 thousand to one million, not $600m.)

    Either way, the streetcar is going to be built at this point with or without stimulus money. We might as well take what we can get to do it now. Maybe it’ll stave off some of the growing unemployment in the region.

  13. I want to be on a streetcar that will move efficiently, not subject to being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on *HIGHWAY 99E*! (aka Grand and MLK)

    Traffic on that corridor moves pretty quickly — try crossing either street during peak traffic without the benefit of a traffic light. I don’t recall ever seeing it “bumper-to-bumper.”

  14. The jobs that this project will generate are the jobs that are about to be lost when the Green line finishes construction. Stacy and Witbeck (and their sub-contractors) will lay off/is already laying off their Oregon employees because the Green line is almost finished. If the streetcar starts construction soon, they’ll keep those people on and use them to build the streetcar loop. And while the streetcar jobs only last until 2011 or so, they’ll be extending one end or the other (or both) of the Yellow Line by then and so those jobs will continue on…

    Compared to the cost of unemployment benefits for those people, having them build streetcar track costs a little more, but instead of them sitting at home not able to find work, we would at least get a streetcar loop out of the deal.

  15. Matthew:

    So are you saying that our tax dollars should be used to pay for a permanent light rail construction force? This is nuts and little wonder our economy is in the tank. Spending money we don’t have will drive us further underwater.

  16. So are you saying that our tax dollars should be used to pay for a permanent light rail construction force?

    I can’t speak for Matthew, but in my opinion that’s not at all what is being proposed.

    The point of the _stimulus_ package (which has already passed and has been signed into law), is to provide a backstop to a rapidly shrinking private sector — to arrest the downward spiral, so that the economy can build itself back up again.

    The point is to provide jobs (and stimulus via the largest tax cuts in history, which most economists think will have less bang-for-the-buck, bit they’re in there) via projects which were on the radar anyway.

    There’s enough road/rail/bridge/bike/ped projects on the radar to keep people on the payroll until the private sector is ready to expand again.

    Beyond the 2-3 year short term (the scope of most of the stimulus bill), do we need a “permanent” rail construction force? Well, do we need a “permanent” road construction force, a “permanent” airport expansion force? We seem to have those. In my opinion “permanent” by congressional fiat, _no_. But if we’re smart as a region, our infrastructure projects will have timelines and funding streams that allow for the efficient allocation of labor — it costs more in the long run to constantly fire and then re-hire people again for projects that are likely to be built anyway.

  17. ‘I don’t recall ever seeing it “bumper-to-bumper.”‘

    Then you’ve clearly never been between Holladay and Broadway northbound, during any weekday PM peak.

  18. The only projects on that website that got “approval” votes are ports, landfill gas collection, and roads. Everything else got negative scores.

    Virtually all of the comments on that site indicate that the people are against the stimulus in general.

    Here’s to hoping they all lose THEIR jobs and go homeless in the next year or so. I need some company here under the Burnside Bridge.

  19. On a more serious note!

    A permanent light rail construction force would actually likely give us higher construction efficiencies in the long run (if managed tightly w/out huge union wage increases) like Europe benefits from.

    Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the comparative ridership #s are between the Eastside Loop and the Hawthorne line? Wasn’t the Hawthorne line expected to generate something like 10 times the ridership number?

  20. As far as I know, no firm numbers have been previously calculated for a streetcar line on Hawthorne.

    We’ve only just reached the point in the Streetcar System Plan process where all of the initial community input (from the various district working groups) and the technical reports are being taken into account, and preliminary corridors are being knitted into a system, and more serious modeling, including ridership projections will be done.

    While a Hawthorne/Foster line (my suggestion — it’s not set in stone) out to Lents would be a significant ridership generator (and would start out with a significant initial ridership due to the high transit utilization already present), I don’t think it would be 10X that of the loop project in any scenario.

  21. Matthew wrote: The jobs that this project will generate are the jobs that are about to be lost when the Green line finishes construction.

    Babcock wrote: So are you saying that our tax dollars should be used to pay for a permanent light rail construction force?

    And how do we fund these continual light rail/Streetcar projects over and over again? The stimulus program isn’t forever, and as history has shown the economy is a permanent roller coaster.

    What do we cut – all bus service?

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