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Friday, March 28, 2008
Portland Streetcar Obamamania
Can we have a time-out on the whole streetcar expansion thing? Labels: Civics, Design, Portland, Portland History, Public Policy, Transportation
Recently, the Oregonian printed a story on the impending Portland Streetcar System Plan. What's really interesting is to compare the system's proposed map, (as shown here in a Big O rendering,) with historic maps of the Portland Traction system, such as this one from 1924. They are amazingly similar.
The historian/nostalgist in me thinks this is really really cool. The pragmatist in me has a warning. One of the -- if not the primary -- goals of streetcar construction is development. This is nothing new really. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, streetcar lines were built to areas like Sunnyside or Council Crest specifically with development in mind. They opened up farmland to become subdivision stock, making fast commutes from outlying areas possible for the first time. In many cases lines were "aimed" into areas where land was empty and cheap.
And this puts the first hurdle in the way of the Streetcar System Plan: by largely copying the old Portland Traction alignments, it is adhering to a development pattern of a century ago, and not necessarily of today. This puts redevelopment smack in the middle of some of Portland's more vital neighborhoods. Do we really want or need to tear up Hawthorne or Belmont to install multi-story condo developments? Because that's one of the likely results of putting a streetcar in on these streets.
There's another problem too, and it also requires a brief history lesson.
Portland's now lamented streetcar system morphed into today's TriMet bus system. Most of the areas that Portland Traction's trolly lines established are the primary neighborhoods of today. Due to this, TriMet's bus routes mimic to an amazing degree the former streetcar lines, and in many cases can directly trace their existence to them, having evolved from streetcar to trolly-bus to diesel bus.
If the streetcar were about transportation, and not development, it might make a lot of sense to build these lines. It is, after all, where a lot of people are going to and from today.
But... uh... what about the buses?
By replicating the old Portland Traction routes, the Portland Streetcar is making a financial stab at the heart of TriMet's territory. Until now, the streetcar served primarily as a people mover in the downtown area, where most of the TriMet service is free anyway. The eastside streetcar loop is starting to get into TriMet's transportation territory, but could be considered as no more than a downtown extension over to the central eastside. There is no question that installing a second transit alternative on the exact same corridors as frequent service TriMet buses will effect bus boardings, and as a result TriMet farebox revenues.
It's the transit equivalent of Julius Ceaser's 49 BC march across the Rubicon river. It might be speculated that TriMet doesn't look too kindly on this streetcar plan, and I can't blame them. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the workers on S.E. 17th found themselves voting for Sho Dozono over streetcar guru Sam Adams for mayor.
There's another issue of course, and it's just a small one: financing.
Although streetcars are far cheaper than light rail to build, they are far less popular with the Federal Transit Administration. One of the main reasons behind this is that streetcars just don't carry that many people. They serve as people movers or local pedestrian circulators, but they don't serve commute functions to any significant degree.
What streetcars do well is bring in economic development. It's one of the reasons I greatly admire the mode, and think they are good things to build. However, it's also something that is hard to quantify, and the FTA currently does not use economic development indicators as a significant tool in deciding how to make expenditures of federal funds.
The current 8-mile streetcar loop (4 miles each way) weighs in at a total construction cost of approximately $87 million. To establish bidirectional service, then, each mile would cost around $22 million. It doesn't take much staring at the proposed system map to see that the extensions outweigh the current system by many times. If there is no federal money, where will the financing come from? Local Improvement Districts (LIDs) cannot raise the money all on their own.
These are hardly the only issues. How, for example, will the streetcar fare against congestion? They can't weave around traffic impediments like buses can. The cars themselves cost about the same as three standard TriMet buses -- and for the money that means TriMet buses can offer more frequent service at a higher passenger capacity for the same money -- and without the need to tear up city streets.
But is this all academic? Does Adams really intend to build this many streetcar lines? Or is he applying his Machiavellian brand of politics to Portland, by making campaign promises he has no intention of keeping? It should be noted that by proposing streetcars for all the historic routes, he touches on Portland's brand of self-involved nostalgia while also promising "a streetcar in every pot" for nearly every neighborhood in the city.
Does any of this plan make sense? Perhaps. Certainly the peninsula of North Portland is under-served by transit, but I suspect that a better approach would be a spur line of Expo MAX, perhaps to a transit center in St. Johns or even beyond in Rivergate.
A better idea would be to install the streetcar along Sandy out to Parkrose. Sandy Boulevard is in many places well behind the times, and ripe for redevelopment. Its diagonal route cuts across so many neighborhoods that it would spread the economic impact of the project more than any other single proposal on the system plan map. It would still have impacts on TriMet service, however the 12 bus that serves Sandy is already over capacity and slow; any additional service here would be welcome. Most of all, it would help to turn over a strip of road that desperately needs public attention, which means that it's a relevant redevelopment for 21st century Portland. The fact that it's also someplace Portland Traction once ran would be a nice symmetry, but no more.
Most of all, however, what I feel we need is a breather. Streetcar building is not an end-all answer to every need the city has, and we need to stop giving it a Barack Obama-like mania. Yes, it's cool. But transportation should be designed with a clear and level head.
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They are not hard to quantify, the feds just don't care about the city, they care about the suburbs. Transit funding in this country is about getting the cheapest price to move people, not about creating great places.
Another thing is that the lines will be built into the neighborhoods that the streetcars created as you said. These of course are the perfect place for streetcars because you have people that live in fairly dense setting but many of whom are still wary of taking the bus. Even in San Francisco you see people taking Muni rail that will never get on a bus, even though we have a great bus system. This is all about increasing development potential, but also giving people a comfortable option and increasing system ridership.
I am a fan of the streetcar, and an enthusiastic supporter of electric transit. But its hard not to ignore the maxim to "be careful what you wish for" when it comes to streetcars returning to long established corridor streets along the likes of Mississippi, Belmont and Hawthorne.
Before the Interstate Max Line was built, I supported it to the point of writing to the Oregonian in favor of its construction. My one concern was that the single family dwelling zoning to the west of the line would remain in place to preserve those healthy neighborhoods already there. No, I was reassured, there were no plans to change the zoning.
Fast forward five years and such plans are in place and are on the verge of being implemented. While much of the single family zoning is preserved, there are obvious land grabs such as an entire block bordered by Skidmore and Mason which has exposure to Interstate on only one corner. It is only a matter of time until the ubiquitous pseudo-moderne block houses so favored by density mavens begin to sprout up and overshadow their neighbors as they do elsewhere in Portland. Not to mention the larger mixed-use-mediocre behemoths
slated for Interstate itself.
Supporters of Interstate Max were excited about bringing better transit and filling empty lots in Interstate. Encroaching on healthy existing neighborhoods was not what they had in mind.
Of course there was a community process. It built from a pre-supposition that the zoning would change rather than should it. Like most top-down engineered civic process in Portland it brought to mind John Nance Garner's quote on the worth of the office of Vice President.
To those neighborhoods bordering corridor streets that are happy with their livability I have to caution to read the fine print, least you find yourself "doing Portland's share" to increase density.
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