From The Enquirer, By Margaret A. McGurk, December 11, 2007
Streetcars work for Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. - When boosters envision a Cincinnati streetcar line running from The Banks to Findlay Market, they pin much of their belief in the idea being an economic boon on what's happened in this Pacific Northwest city.
Six years ago, Portland launched a streetcar linking rundown, underused property near downtown to the city center. There were several goals, but the most important was to jump-start development and redevelopment.
It worked. To date, Portland counts $3.3 billion in private investment within three blocks of its 3.6-mile circuit. The route has been extended three times since 2001, with more ambitious growth on the drawing board.
Last month, 16 visitors from Southwest Ohio spent a weekend here to learn what lessons can be drawn for the proposed $102 million plan now pending before Cincinnati City Council.
They came away, for the most part, with renewed faith in a plan that advocates say can turn Over-the-Rhine into a residential mecca for young professionals and spur new construction downtown.
"I am absolutely amazed at the economic development," said Martha Kelly, an engineer in Cincinnati's transportation planning department. She visited Portland in 2001, just before the streetcar launch, to study the region's light-rail system.
On that trip, "we had gone down to the Pearl District" - one of the neighborhoods targeted for redevelopment - "and it was kind of scary. It was mostly warehouses. By the time we were there for dinner, the streets were deserted."
But on her return trip, Kelly was amazed "to see how much residential development they have now" in the once-derelict Pearl.
Portland and Cincinnati share similarities. Both metro areas have populations of 2.1 million. Both are river towns, both lie on terrain that ranges from flatland to steep hills.
There are key differences, too. Portland has a metro-area governing alliance to provide basic services, and a regional light-rail system that predates the streetcars by several years. Cincinnati has neither.
In Cincinnati, 332,000 people live inside the city. Portland's urban population is 537,000, including a large and growing number of 25-to-34-year-olds. Nationwide, the age group is down 8 percent since 1990, but in Portland, it has risen 12 percent.
To city planners, that age group represents prosperity. Educated young adults attract employers seeking fresh talent with up-to-date skills but relatively low salaries. Young adults with good jobs pay taxes and pump cash into the local economy for housing, consumer goods and entertainment.
They also attract people just like themselves.
"The biggest attraction for talented young people is other talented young people," said economic analyst Joe Cortright, whose study "The Young and The Restless" found that public transportation was one reason young adults like Portland.
Charles Hales, who worked on the streetcar project for the Portland office of HDR engineering consultants, said public transit expands a city's appeal. "In Portland, 60 percent of people still drive to work alone. The point is to create choices."
Cortright said Portland's transit users save $1.1 billion a year by not using cars. "That is basically a billion dollars that is spent here on the local economy," he said.
Advocates in Portland all cited the permanence of fixed-rail transit lines such as streetcars as an attraction for tourists and occasional riders, who know exactly where and when the cars will run. None, however, could explain why its streetcars consistently draw 30 percent higher ridership than buses.
"There is no comparison," Rick Gustafson, director of Portland Streetcars, said. "Whether it's mystic or it's real, it is very different."
NOT RUN ON FARES ALONE
The cost to build and cost to run the streetcar system pushed Portland to come up with a grab-bag of financing ideas, many of them echoed in the proposal submitted by Cincinnati officials.
Gustafson described the funding plan as "a lot of bake sales."
Three different phases of construction cost roughly $100 million (adjusted for inflation to 2007 dollars), most of it from bonds on a city parking structure, followed by special property assessments and tax increment financing bonds. A variety of other city funds and federal funds contributed small amounts.
The line costs $3.9 million a year to operate. Half comes from the regional transit agency, which is supported by payroll taxes. Fares, parking meter income and sponsorships pay for the rest.
Fare income is low because rides are free in the center of the city.
Gustafson acknowledged that Portland Streetcar, like virtually all public transit systems, cannot run on fares alone. "The highway system (also) is dramatically subsidized," he noted.
The ability to move around easily "should be regarded as a fundamental utility in our system, as sewer and water and other utilities we mutually share," Gustafson said. "Obviously, we cannot do it solely with a car because car access is limited when you get into higher density areas."
RAIL CARS ARE CZECH
Portland bought its vehicles from the Czech company Skoda-Inekon. In January, Oregon Iron Works Inc. won a $4 million contract to make new cars for the Portland system based on the Skoda design. They will be the first modern streetcars (as opposed to replicas of historical vehicles) built in the U.S.
The cars are about 8 feet wide and 66 feet long, smaller than light rail trains and slightly lower to the ground than most buses. They run on metal tracks embedded in the street in lanes also used by cars and buses.
Tracks are installed in 12-inch-deep slab cuts that can be opened and filled without closing entire streets or interfering with sidewalk traffic, Gustafson said. Shallow cuts mean few conflicts with utility lines, and a section of track can be installed in three weeks, he said.
Finally, the relative ease of extending a streetcar line is an attraction to Cincinnati planners, since they hope a second phase could one day reach Pill Hill's hospitals and the University of Cincinnati.
The Portland streetcar has been added onto three times and now stretches from Nob Hill, a bustling neighborhood with hospitals, chic shops and restaurants northwest of downtown, to Portland State and Oregon Health & Science universities to the south.
Portland's streetcars also have contributed to what planners call "walkability" - a welcoming quality based on accessibility, visual appeal and the presence of interesting places to go.
The Home Design Trend Survey released this month by the American Institute of Architects found that nationwide, home buyers are increasingly interested in "greater access to public transportation, recreation, commercial and entertainment options."
That means "neighborhoods that are more pedestrian friendly and generally more vibrant" with shopping, public services and dense residential development, the institute reported.
The report describes almost exactly what Cincinnati planners hope will grow up around a streetcar system, if City Council members approve a financing package.
Engineer Hales said history shows that rapid transit can transform a city.
"You've got to get the first two miles built," he said. "After that, lightning strikes, and everyone wants it."
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