Streetcar plan cheered
BY MARGARET A. MCGURK |
MMCGURK@ENQUIRER.COM
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Cincinnati will unveil plans Tuesday on how to pay for a four-mile, $100 million downtown streetcar line that advocates believe will contribute $2 billion to the city’s economy and transform Over-the-Rhine.
The plan’s cheerleaders include politicians, transit activists and urban developers.
So far, it seems to have no enemies, although that could change when the city explains where it will get the money to fund the plan.
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City Council’s economic development committee holds a public hearing Tuesday at 1 p.m. at City Hall, and expects city officials to present financing details. While planners have kept a tight lid on those details, the plan is expected to rely heavily on bonds that will be repaid with tax income generated by new development along the streetcar line.
The streetcar plan aims to create an Over-the-Rhine neighborhood where downtown workers can live without owning cars, and where visitors can leave their cars in outlying lots and ride streetcars to riverfront events.
If the city’s projections are correct, the line would also kick-start redevelopment worth almost $2 billion in investments, rising property values and growth in property tax collections.
The program could return vacant buildings to use for as many as 1,574 homes, and convert some of the 97 acres of downtown parking lots to commercial space. “That is a heck of a lot of parking space” for a city this size, said city architect Michael Moore.
In later phases, the streetcars could be extended to reach the University of Cincinnati and nearby hospitals, backers say.
The plan’s model is Portland, Ore., where officials report more than 7,200 new homes and 4.6 million square feet of new commercial development along a 7.2-mile-long streetcar line since it opened in 2001.
The push for streetcars comes five years after Hamilton Conty voters emphatically rejected a $2.3 billion light-rail system.
“We really tried to pick a lay-up here,” said John Schneider, head of the Alliance for Regional Transit. “We were shooting outside the three-point circle in 2002.”
First, streetcar supporters decided to focus on the city – where voters favored the 2002 light rail proposal by 2-to-1 while it was defeated by a similar margin countywide. local support was key. The countywide total vote in ’02 was 2-to-1 against light rail, but the central city vote was 2-to-1 in favor. Second, the plan was kept simple and relatively inexpensive – “confining it to flat land, no rivers, no bridges, no tunnels.”
So far, the strategy seems to be working. Pro-streetcar groups turned out in force for the two open houses where details were on exhibit, and no organized opposition has arisen.
The smooth sailing for the plan, however, may be due in part to the absence so far of a specific plan to cover the $100 million cost.
The non-profit development group Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC) owns substantial real estate around Washington Park, which would presumably be more attractive to developers with streetcars.
Yet Darrick Dansby, who oversees Over-the-Rhine real estate development for the 3CDC, said the group has taken no position yet on the plan.
“It’s a great concept,” he said, “but we are waiting until we see the formal financial plan.”
Opposition to the 2002 light-rail plan was strong among political conservatives. So far, that’s not true for the streetcar plan.
Paul Weyrich, head of the conservative think-tank Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, argues that streetcar and light rail systems reflect conservative values.
More than 10 years ago, he and co-author William S. Lind wrote, “The dominance of the automobile is not a free-market outcome, but the result of massive government intervention on behalf of the automobile. That intervention came at the expense of privately owned, privately funded, tax-paying public transit systems.”
Today, Weyrich said, transit systems support economic growth, if properly planned and managed. “You have got to go where people want to go,” he said. “Some of these systems don’t go anywhere.”
Southwestern Ohio Regional Transit Authority board member Stephan Louis, who lobbied against the 2002 light rail plan, said he has not taken any position on the streetcars, which he considers unrelated to the existing bus system.
“We don’t see ourselves competing or challenging or going after the business that is proposed for this economic development plan using the streetcar,” he said.
Operating costs for streetcars are about the same as bus lines, said Jim Graebner, chairman of the Streetcar and Heritage Trolley Subcommittee of the American Public Transit Association.
However, he said, “That ‘about’ covers a lot of things.” Among them is maintenance, which is much lower for electric cars compared to diesel buses, he said.
“Streetcars definitely have a longer life span,” Graebner said. “The typical streetcar is designed to last between 20 and 30 years. Buses have about a 12-year life.” He said cars built in the 1950s have been restored and are running today. “They’ll keep going as long as you keep replacing parts.”
Along with moderate operating costs, streetcars have other advantages, supporters say. For instance, their tracks are relatively quick and easy to install, and the city already owns the right-of-way on the streets where they will run.
Expanding the line uphill to the Corryville/University Heights area could cost more because of the geography, but how much is unclear.
“The problem is now we don’t have any really good … ridership data, engineering data, population data, suggesting what route is best.”
Originally Posted by SunDeck
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