From the Tucson Citizen, By Garry Duffy, March 22, 2007
Some find streetcar desirable, even at $25M a mile
Tucson's modern streetcar system, at $25 million a mile, will be an expensive experiment in spurring increased transit use and downtown redevelopment.
Planned for a 2010 start on a four-mile route from University Medical Center to west of the downtown area, the system will be a "great people mover" that will attract new mixed development along its route, especially in the area of the city's Rio Nuevo downtown rejuvenation project, proponents say.
Voters approved the streetcar system last year as part of the Regional Transportation Authority's 20-year transportation improvement plan, which will be partly funded with a half-cent sales tax passed in the election.
At an open house Wednesday night in the Historic Downtown Train Deport, residents and business owners mixed with city transportation and Rio Nuevo officials to learn about the streetcar project, a new Fourth Avenue underpass, the completion of the Barraza-Aviation Parkway north to Sixth Street and Rio Nuevo.
"If the streetcar gets people to go downtown, it probably will help make that area a lot better," said Vladimir Chetochine, who works at the University of Arizona in marketing.
That was one of the selling points of the system when marketed to voters.
"It can be a contributor to both historic preservation and bringing new development," said Bryan Copp, an engineer with HDR, a consulting firm designing the system for the city.
It has happened that way in other cities where modern streetcar systems were approved by voters and then built. They include San Diego and Portland, Ore.
Some who have seen the results in Portland agreed Wednesday that the marriage of a modern streetcar with new, high-quality development has been successful.
"The system in Portland is magnificent," David Gould, who as a volunteer with Tucson's Old Pueblo Trolley is familiar with rail transit as a transportation alternative.
"I think this could be a tremendous generator of new development in the area," Gould said.
Some see it differently.
"It would have been far cheaper to just make express buses free," Dick Basse, a longtime transportation project citizen watchdog, said.
The community as a whole would be better served with free bus service at a lower cost than the streetcar, Basse said.
But with construction set to begin in 2008 or early 2009, that argument is moot at best.
The streetcar system will run between Campbell Avenue at Helen Street, through UA, down Fourth Avenue, split at Congress Street and Broadway, and terminate west of the freeway at Avenida de Convento and Congress Street, Shellie Ginn, city project manager, said.
The streetcar would run on permanent tracks set in existing roads. Stops will be about one-fifth of a mile apart, with four stations planned along the route - at Tyndall Avenue and University Boulevard, Helen Street and Campbell Avenue, and at Eighth and Sixth streets at Fourth Avenue.
Each streetcar will have a capacity of about 125 - with seating for about 35 and standing room for another 92 passengers.
Those at the open house heard about other downtown development projects.
- The Fourth Avenue underpass: The long-delayed project is set to begin in May. An earlier plan to build an underpass to the west and convert the existing one to pedestrian-only access was scrapped because of the high cost and haggling with downtown merchants over traffic circulation patterns.
The $24 million underpass will be built where the existing one is after that is demolished.
- The Barraza-Aviation Parkway will be completed to link with Sixth Street north of downtown. The $84 million project will start in about five years. A major aim of the project will be to divert traffic heading to Interstate 10 from the downtown area.
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