[IMAGE]MET11-Streetcar3.jpg[/IMAGE] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, streetcars were constructed to serve burgeoning populations across the U.S. The streetcar was handy for many reasons, among them, transporting people that had few transit options to the city center from outlying neighborhoods. They also spurred development around the areas where streetcar lines were, often creating beautiful tree-lined centers that had all the shopping and necessary amenities people often found themselves having to travel long distances for.

“If you look at the great old city neighborhoods all over the country, you can see where the streetcars used to be,” says Charlie Hales, senior VP at HDR Engineering. “It’s where the great old buildings are, with the storefronts and Craftsmen or English Tudor or Dutch Colonial homes. Every city still has these neighborhoods.”

With the post-war mass production of automobiles, and the subsequent building of highways and infrastructure to support those automobiles, streetcars around the nation soon became ghosts. However, population surges, particularly in urban city areas, have forced as many as 60 cities, by some estimates, to explore the implementation of streetcars once again. One major hurdle to getting these projects off the ground, though, is the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) reticence to fund streetcar systems, forcing many communities to sharpen their pencils and search for alternative funding sources.

Stimulates economic boom
Estimates have found that the population is expected to double in many areas around the U.S., particularly in metropolitan areas, over the next 25 years. Along with that is a growing number of “empty nesters” looking to live in places where mobility is easy, with close proximity to all of the necessary conveniences — shopping, medical offices and markets. This change of lifestyle is also occurring on the opposite side of the spectrum, with many younger professionals, who have spent much of their lives being environmentally conscious, craving areas where they can get around easily via foot, bicycle or mass transit.

The main reason streetcar advocates point out that they are an ideal solution, though, is their potential to stimulate an economic boom. “Streetcars are a catalyst for the kind of urban development that cities are striving to create,” explains Hales. “So far, they’ve been successful. Not just pretty good, spectacularly successful.”

Streetcar advocates need only to point out one system to support their argument that streetcars can bring development — Portland.

Since passenger service began on Portland’s streetcar system in July 2001, approximately $3.5 billion has been invested, with 10,212 new housing units and 5.4 million square feet of office, institutional, retail and hotel construction taking place within two blocks of the streetcar’s now 5-mile alignment, all while creating fewer parking areas. Ridership has also grown quicker then expected, going from 1.4 million riders in Fiscal Year 2001/2002, to a projected 4.3 million in FY 08/09.

That same kind of development is also taking hold in Seattle, where the 2.6-mile Southlake Union line was launched in December 2007.

“If you fly over Seattle, you can see where the streetcar line is, not by noticing the rails in the street, but by noticing the cranes and construction projects along the corridor,” says Hales.

Cliff Henke, senior analyst for Parsons Brinckerhoff, adds that the streetcar line and subsequent development was a major reason that online bookseller Amazon decided to locate its headquarters along the Southlake Union streetcar line. “The Southlake Union project is already wildly successful and streetcars are really playing a big part in stimulating development in the area,” he says.

Another major benefit of streetcar lines is the ability to build a starter line in a relatively short amount of time. “If you follow the mantra, ‘Keep it simple. Stupid.’ It’s very attractive from the standpoint of a municipality, because a politician can potentially do a project within their term of office,” says Tom Furmaniak, VP, southeast region, for LTK Engineering Services.

In fact, many agree that an initial line — usually less than two miles — can go from a standing start to completion within three years at a cost of about $25 million per mile, with long lead items, such as the preferred girder rail, which is only manufactured in Europe, being the largest obstacles once all other ducks are in their proverbial row.

 [PAGEBREAK] Lacking federal support
Their relatively low cost and ability to effectively move people along a corridor, usually only a few stops at a time, would seem to make streetcars a viable and popular mode of transportation. Well, they are popular in plenty of cities that are currently in some phase of a streetcar project, including Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Long Beach, Irvine and Santa Ana, Calif.; Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; Boise, Idaho; Spokane, Wash.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Des Moines, Iowa, to name a few, however, where they seemingly aren’t popular is with the FTA.

“The suspicion of many streetcar advocates is that there’s an ideological opposition to them within the agency,” says Henke. “It’s a pretty strongly held point of view by a number of people.”

Adds Charlie Hales: “The federal government is an absent partner in supporting these kinds of projects, and that puts cities and transit agencies in a position of having to do some very heavy lifting to finance these projects on their own.”

Advocates of streetcars say it is best to start with a short route, usually 1 mile to 2 miles, which keeps the costs down and makes it easier to get off the ground. With these modest beginnings in mind, these projects would seem ideal to receive Small Starts funding, but currently only three projects — Portland’s Eastside Loop and Tucson’s and Fort Lauderdale’s start ups — are applying for funds through the FTA and, at this point, having issues. In fact to date, the Small Starts program, which was added on to SAFTEA-LU with the funding of streetcar systems in mind, has yet to fund one project.

“Ever since the Reagan administration, the FTA has been focused on commuter moving cost effectiveness [equation] and endeavoring to dribble the money out as slowly as possible,” explains Hales. “They are obsessed with a narrow view of transportation cost effectiveness that pays no attention to economic development and trips in cars that aren’t taken because of the presence of transit.”

Because of the comparatively low ridership numbers, many streetcar projects are losing out on Small Starts funding, while bus rapid transit (BRT) projects have appeared to many advocates as the preferred mode of transportation by the FTA. Many advocates feel that the FTA’s biggest mistake is holding strong to its formula and ignoring streetcars’ potential — and proven — benefits.

“They don’t do much for regional mobility and that’s what transit agencies were formed to do; provide alternatives to highway congestion,” says Henke, noting Seattle’s 1,500- to 2,000-passengers-per-day load. “What they are, though, are great enhancers to pedestrian mobility and walkability, a nice amenity to the urban design and a tool for redevelopment.”

The $50 Million mark
So, as streetcar projects are seemingly popping up every day and the FTA seems unwilling to fund them, how are these cities going to pay for their projects?

“The next step that streetcar projects are looking at is an alternative that is separate from how traditional BRT and rail projects are funded,” says Henke.

Henke adds that because streetcars have development, energy efficiency and land-use planning dimensions, that there are many people that would like to see projects find that funding elsewhere, taking it completely out of transportation analysis.

“A rule of thumb that we like to use to sell that first line is to keep it around the $50 million mark,” advises Furmaniak. “Generally, that’s about two miles. Also, people can typically find that money somehow without having to go through some long convoluted process to get it.” Streetcar entities trying to get $50 million out of the FTA, could spend as much as $10 million to $15 million to get it, he adds.

Portland and Seattle still serve as the models for these projects in the way that they funded their projects without the use of federal money, however, every city isn’t the same, and therefore, has to search for the right mix that will work. Some of the ideas for funding include finding state and local government dollars and some form of public-private partnership, which can range from sponsorship of stations to the purchasing of the streetcars themselves.

“Every tool in the kit is being taken out and applied to the challenge of trying to fund the first segment of the streetcar system in the cities that are trying to make something happen,” says Hales, who adds that in some cases projects are weeks or months away from figuring out how to finance the first phase and moving forward, while others still have miles to go before they can attain success.

Many are hopeful that the incoming U.S. president and his new administration will help sort out a way for the funding of Small Starts programs to work better for those applying. Others point to the upcoming federal transportation reauthorization as an opportunity to rewrite the parameters for funding, thus making it clearer and simpler to apply and possibly receive Small Starts money.

However, another important factor that many advocates say cannot be overlooked is finding ways to transport people in growing urban areas, with population in these areas expected to double in the next 25 to 30 years, who have a growing awareness of their own environmental responsibility.

“The outlook is pretty good, given that some of the macro-forces driving people to return to the cities and increasing interest in city development, in redevelopment, are going to also help drive streetcar development,” says Henke on the future of streetcar projects. “Things like the number of people that want to live with housing near transit facilities. These focuses on the need for better energy efficiency within a city, or just promoting more walkability and less auto dependency will be important as cities look for ways to move people without increasing their carbon footprint.”

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