$15 – $40 Million per mile?

A bit pricey.

I have not seen what parts of the city that are not covered by rail or bus that would be covered by streetcar.

Perhaps the city should first consider having the streets repaired first.

From what I understand, the city does not have sufficient funds for street repair and is considering a levy lift.

I like the idea of a street car. However, I think it is an open question as to whether this is the most efficient use of $200 million dollars which is around the cost of the convention center.

Are there more cost effetive methods to revitalize Tacoma?

Should the city consider rehabilitating some of the abandoned buildings first?

Here’s the article from the Tacoma News Tribune concerning the cost:

“That’s 24 miles of track. Using estimates from a recent consultant’s report on streetcar costs for Washington, D.C., our track would cost $10 million per mile or $240 million. Eight electric streetcars at $600,000 apiece will cost $4.8 million.”

Of course, if the cost is $15 – $40 M per mile, the cost would be higher.

“So we should build more convention centers???”

That wouldn’t be my preference. I am not sure how much convention centers add to downtowns. Additionally, they generally lose money.

For that level of money, I would try to first fix the problems on Pacific Avenue where these long dead zones have been created by the parking garages.

The southern parking garage is scheduled to be renovated. However, the larger northern garage is on hold because of lack of funds.

These areas used to have continuous retail and office buildings on them and were overflowing with activity. Now they are ugly caverns and not attractive for pedestrians.

“A question for those of you who are more familiar with Tacoma’s history: would it be fair to say that economic decline followed the removal of the original streetcar lines?”

According to the History Link all of the street cars were eliminated mid-1930s.

Tacoma started going downhill in November 1951 when a state legislative committee held hearings on organized crime and vice” occurring in Tacoma.

From my reading the defining event that devasted downtown Tacoma was the opening of the Tacoma Mall in 1964 which caused many of the anchor retail tenants to abandon downtown Tacoma. A similar dynamic in many cities. However, Tacoma did not seem to handle it as well as cities like Seattle and Bellingham.

Streetcar Q&A:

Q. ”...can you add more than one when its busy?”
A. If it is shown that this is feasible, I don’t see why it can’t happen.

Q. ”...some of the routes shown don’t even go to the business districts”
A. The route examples shown on the Tacoma Streetcar web site are meant to provide a point of departure for further discussion. Final route decisions would be determined by engineering studies and neighborhood planning sessions.

Q. “3. Does this run on LINK light rail lines?”
A. With the exception of using the downtown LINK tracks at the start and end of the day, the proposed trolley system would not run on a light rail line. Light rail can cost up to $80-$120M per mile. Tacoma LINK was about $80M per mile when constructed. Trolley lines require less intensive construction and so cost less.

Q. “Isn’t it a known fact that people don’t like to transfer to another route or transportation type?”
A. It is known that frequency of service is a major factor in whether or not people take mass transit. The goal of trolley service is to provide predictable, frequent service to discourage short in-city automobile trips.

Q. “Lets learn from Seattle… I always thought they were idiots for thinking of building the Monorail when the light rail was going in. The 2 didn’t sync up.”
A. I happened to live in Seattle during the first couple rounds of Monorail votes. At that time, Sound Transit was… not so Sound, as it is today. There was more doubt in Sound Transit than the Monorail. And at that time both agencies were in early stages of route planning. It wasn’t later until there was some coordination between the two agencies, but by then it was too late.

Q. “4. When do we start planning the subway?”
A. It’s never too late to start planning! However, some people consider the streetcar concept to be a not worthy of investment at any price. With this in mind, it’s doubtful we will see support for subways, which likely would cost exponentially more than trolleys.

Thanks for the questions, Jake!

Is there anyway to build the streetcar routes without the ugly overhead wires?

Since the streetcars would follow existing bus routes, why wouldn’t it be preferrable to add more busses and increase the frequency of bus stops?

What are the advantages of a streetcar over a bus?