Portland got word yesterday that the Feds will provide $75 million for expansion of our central city streetcar line to the East Side. Doubly good news here because it will provide orders for the new United Streetcar company, a subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works in Portland’s suburbs. The only U.S. streetcar manufacturer, United, is hoping for orders from around the country.
I thought I’d see if I could find other new rail transit announcements in other cities and didn’t find much, just one announcement of funding for light rail in Phoenix. But I expect there will be others soon, between the Stimulus and the new budget. I did find this list of current projects.
The Portland Streetcar announcement didn’t show up in my Google search, nor in the current projects list, nor on the U.S. Department of Transportation. So there may have been other local announcements. Does anyone know of new projects in your town?
May 1st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Is $75 million enough? In Houston, the price is #300 million+ per light-rail line.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I’m in Portland, Oregon and this announcement is all over the local news. These sources are calling this project the “streetcar example” for the country.
Have there been other announcements of transportation projects like this elsewhere?
May 1st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Mike,
It’s about half the cost, the other $75 million in local match is pledged.
This isn’t light rail, it’s a streetcar which is smaller, lighter and cheaper. Portland has both, the MAX light rail that goes to the suburbs and the streetcar that goes through downtown and some close-in West Side neighborhoods. This will put a streetcar loop across the Willamette River to the inner East Side.
The breakthrough here is while the Bush administration would fund light rail (Portland has two projects underway), it wouldn’t fund streetcars despite a law requiring it. The rationale was that it didn’t serve suburban commuters, so wasn’t “cost effective”.
For a state and city with an emphasis on fighting sprawl, streetcars promoting denser close-in development makes sense and the new administration supports this.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Mike -
Love the streetcars.. but I can walk faster than they move. I wonder if that money would be better spent connecting Vancouver and Portland with rail.
s
May 1st, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Steven,
You’re right, downtown in traffic you can outwalk the streetcar — if you’re able bodied, not carrying anything heavy, no small children, etc. And walking is more pleasant when it’s not raining, which is to say about half of the time in Portland. Once you’re outside the downtown traffic, the streetcar is faster.
Vancouver will get its chance, but not for a few years until they agree on the Columbia River Bridge. Interesting Creative Class fight happening there, cost vs. design.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Stuff White People Like #147: Public Transportation That Is Not a Bus.
“… White people all support the idea of public transportation and will be happy to tell you about how the subways and streetcars/trams have helped to energize cities like Chicago and Portland. They will tell you all about the energy and cost savigns of having people abandon their cars for public transportation and how they hope that one day they can live in a city where they will be car-free.
At this point, you are probably thinking about the massive number of buses that serve your city and how you have never seen a white person riding them. To a white person a bus is essentially a giant minivan that continually stops to pick up progressively smellier people. You should never, ever point this out to a white person. It will make them recognize that they might not love public transportation as much as they though, and then they will feel sad.”
I wonder how many buses you could buy and make to run for 75 million dollars, let alone 300 million that a Houston light rail costs. Then again, boring old buses and their reality are not as exciting for the creative class as, say, sleek light rail made of granola that run on solar energy.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Ilkka,
It depends on your city. Of course, Portland is mostly white (not that there’s anything wrong with white), but 90% of the people on buses here are white. I ride the bus generally 3 days a week.
In San Francisco I ride the bus sometimes because driving is a pain, and would say riders are pretty mixed. In NYC I stick to the subway, which is pretty mixed — I can walk crosstown. In Atlanta you’re right, but it’s a majority-Black city. Don’t know about Houston.
However, buses have their limitations. They are limited to the streets so move no faster than cars, slower if you count stops. And they don’t encourage dense development the way rail does, because the routes can and do change.
Funny how the “stuff white people like” joke book is being used by (so far as I know) white conservatives to attack white “bobos”. Don’t get me wrong I think the book is hilarious, but I also know it’s tongue in cheek.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Seattle has a lot of middle class bus riders that pretty much seem to match the ethnic distribution of the population. However, there does seem to be the belief that real transit runs on steel wheels. So we wasted $100 million on a 2 mile street car line that runs no faster than the buses.
We are also spending billions on a light rail sytem that should run a lot faster than street cars and I think is a worthwhile investment.
Microsoft runs a private bus services for it’s employees that do not have direct access to regular bus service to the MS campus. Apparently 3000 riders a day.
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Good god, Michael, IT’S A JOKE! You’re seriously arguing with a caricature?
I was going to post that streetcars are SWPL, but Ilkka beat me to it.
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
The ridiculously high cost and inflexibility of streetcars and light rail compared to buses certainly is no joke.
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Buzzcut,
I know it’s a joke. But of course as a caricature it has some truth, or it wouldn’t be funny. Actually made me think about who I see riding buses.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thank you for your comments, everyone.
$75 million, Federal, $55 million from local governments and another $20 million from state lottery bonds = $150 million. There are going to be about another 3 miles = $50 million per mile (roughly the same as Houston’s light-rail cost).
According to the Oregonian: “Within a three block distance from the streetcar, real estate investment has surged,”
This suggests that speculative developers could easily have funded all $150 million out of their own pockets.
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I thought Houston was $300 million/mile?
I guess the developers could fund it, although I’d guess the profits from say $1 billion in construction aren’t much more than $150 million, if that. But the reason for the development is that people want to live/work/shop near the streetcar, so the riders and nearby residents, shopkeepers, businesses benefit too. At least on the Westside streetcar, the adjacent property owners pay fees/taxes, which I think is the source of the local government money.
I think its a good deal in terms of economic development and keeping the central city healthy. If you look at downtowns like Kansas City or Buffalo which haven’t done this kind of development, they’re dead.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:05 am
In 2006, “Houston’s light rail was about $300 million for 7.5 miles, or $40 mil per mile.” ( http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/lofiversion/index.php/t4519.html )
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:03 am
And Houston’s rail is stupidly and cheaply put at grade level.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Well, Michael, all you really need to know about busses you can learn from “Crash”. Busses are the transportation of the damned.
The latest issue of “Make” has a section called “Rules of Thumb”. You know, like “measure twice, cut once”.
One of them was “always sit in the middle of the bus. The over-social nuts sit in the front, and the anti-social nuts sit in the back. You never get bothered in the middle.”
They could easily make busses SWPL. Just make free wi-fi available on them. White people love free wi-fi. And make it so you can track their location in real time on Google Earth. White people love Google Earth.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:02 am
We are going BRT (bus rapid transit) in Nashville. The first line is up with shiny, new hybrid buses. It won’t be a true BRT for another few months when the buses get signal prioritization. I don’t think they will get separate lanes for several years. That is one of the nice things about BRT; it can be introduced incrementally. It can start as little more than an enhanced bus service, but with improvements, can include stations, a fixed guideway, etc. We are also going to add a circulator route downtown. I imagine it will also be rubber tired.
Oh, I’m a regular rider and I see a nice mix of folks on the buses here.