Streetcars are poised for a dramatic comeback

Up to 22 US cities could be laying track within two years.

Thanks to the Obama Administration, streetcars may soon be reintroduced into many cities that haven’t had them for more than 50 years.

Since the middle of last year, the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) have largely reversed policies of President George W. Bush that favored bus rapid transit and made it difficult to spend federal funds to build streetcar lines.

Twenty-two cities around the country have plans for streetcar lines that could go into construction within two years, Rick Gustafson, executive director of Portland Streetcar Inc. in Oregon, told a 1000 Friends of Connecticut conference in March.

Some of those projects will no doubt suffer delays for financial or other reasons, Gustafson later told New Urban News, “but I would predict that in 24 months there will probably be five to eight systems under construction.” Those with the strongest prospects for early construction include:

• Tucson Modern Streetcar, a 3.9-mile line which, when it opens, may carry 3,600 riders per weekday on a route connecting downtown Tucson to the University of Arizona. The Tucson line received funding through a US Department of Transportation TIGER grant in February, as did lines in Detroit, Dallas, New Orleans, and Portland.

• Seattle’s First Hill Streetcar, a 2.2-mile line that would connect Capitol Hill, First Hill, and the International District to Link light rail and Sounder commuter rail. It would be Seattle’s second modern streetcar line, joining the South Lake Union Streetcar, which started operating in December 2007.

• District of Columbia Streetcar, a 37-mile network that would offer the first streetcar service in the nation’s capital since 1962. Construction of a two-mile segment linking Union Station to an emerging retail and entertainment district has already begun, its $75 million cost paid entirely by local funds. Another $30 million segment, also paid for with local funds, would connect a federal employment center to the low-income Anacostia neighborhood.

Washington’s system — which already has several cars that were fabricated in the Czech Republic — may end up costing a total of $1.5 billion, which could be paid for through a combination of federal funds, tax-increment financing districts in the areas to be served, and revenue from other sources.

• Extension of the Portland Streetcar — the line that in 2001 kicked off America’s streetcar renaissance — to areas on the east side of the Willamette River, thus making a loop of the city center. The project, which could generate 2,500 housing units, has begun construction.  

The Community Streetcar Coalition’s summit in February in Alexandria, Virginia, brought together organizers devising systems in 22 cities, including Little Rock, Arkansas; Los Angeles and Sacramento, California; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Atlanta; Boise, Idaho; New Orleans; Baltimore; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; Lake Oswego, Oregon; Providence, Rhode Island; Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, Texas; Salt Lake City; Arlington, Virginia; and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Changes in federal policy
David Vozzolo of HDR Engineering traced how the Obama Administration has made it easier for cities to start new streetcar lines or expand existing ones:

• Last June, FTA announced that it would evaluate New Starts and Small Starts applications on the basis not only of cost-effectiveness (as judged by how much travel time is saved) but also the land uses that the transit project would support and the economic development the transit project would bring about. Approximately equal weight would be given to each of those three factors.

• In December, DOT announced that it would make grants of up to $25 million each for “urban circulator systems such as streetcars and rubber-tire trolleys.” It noted that these systems foster “the redevelopment of urban spaces into walkable mixed use, high density environments.”

• In January, DOT rescinded a Bush policy that had required New Starts projects to achieve at least a “medium” rating on cost-effectiveness. That rating relied on criteria that tended to favor longer-distance modes of transit, such as bus rapid transit. Gustafson points out that no streetcars were able to qualify for funds under the Bush measure of cost-effectiveness.

These and other changes are helping to alter the urban transportation landscape. The new approach is tailored to the needs of denser urban places.

“A streetcar does not save any travel time” (a key standard of the Bush Administration), Gustafson concedes. Rather, a streetcar makes movement within a city more convenient, and helps build up relatively dense, walkable, mixed use corridors. It also reduces dependence on automobiles. “In ten years, there’s been $3.5 billion of private investment along the Portland Streetcar line,” Gustafson says.

“Fifty-three percent of the development in downtown since 1997 has been within a block of the streetcar line. Seattle has experienced $2.5 billion in development, with Amazon.com locating its headquarters on the streetcar line.”

Portland’s experience shows that with a streetcar, “there is higher ridership than if you ran a bus” — about 30 percent higher, according to his calculations. A vehicle on rails does not swerve, as a bus does. The ride is steadier, more comfortable.

Streetcars are much cheaper to build than light rail, and their cars can be shorter — Portland’s are 66 feet long, two-thirds the length of a light-rail car. “It fits better with automobiles,” he says. Through Portland’s efforts, streetcars are now beginning to be built domestically. A company known as United Streetcar, in Portland, is building cars for the systems in Portland and Tucson.

Because streetcars generate economic development, their primary advocates often are cities. Portland’s city government used an independent nonprofit organization, Portland Streetcar Inc. — whose board includes local residents and property owners as well as the regional transit agency — to build widespread support for the project, according to Gustafson. It is unlikely that Tri-Met, the transit agency, would have been able to do that on its own.

At one point, responsibility for building the streetcar system in DC was handed over to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Gustafson says. “They discovered that was a mistake.” Increasingly, DC’s Department of Transportation has stepped in, Gustafson says.  “Had the City of Portland turned our streetcar over to Tri-Met, it would never have been built. A lot of transit agencies around the country fail to see the benefit of the streetcar.”