Bus
The Streetcar: Cincinnati’s Silk Purse
Some Cincinnatians argue for buses instead of streetcars. Buses have no effect on development.
Why?
Because a bus route can disappear overnight. Buses also seldom attract “riders from choice” with significant disposable incomes, which is what cities need economically. Rail transportation appeals to middle-class and upper-middle-class people, who have money to spend in stores, restaurants, and theatres. Streetcars, with their investments in tracks and wires, represent a commitment from the city to lasting, high-quality transit service, that developers can count on in the years to come.
While buses usually carry only the transit dependent, rail service can appeal to riders from choice – people who have cars and can drive, but who choose to ride transit instead. Most riders from choice represent a car removed from traffic, which benefits everyone, including the person who still drives.
In terms of economic development, streetcars are silk purses and buses are sows’ ears. You can’t make one into the other, not even through an unfunded federal mandate.
We’ll take the silk, thank you.
Research by Paul Weyrich and William Lind, Free Congress Foundation
Why Streetcars, Why Now?
Cincinnati may have 300 feet of rail already laid in the ground for our streetcar project, yet some continue to question, “Why not build light rail or add more buses instead?”
Shelley Poticha and Gloria Ohland of Reconnecting America researched this inquiry, offering evidence contrasting streetcars from other forms of transportation:
WHY STREETCARS, WHY NOW?
Streetcar systems are uniquely suited to serve all the high density development underway in downtowns across the United States. They’re much cheaper than light rail, are hugely successful in promoting development and street life, and fit easily into built environments with little disruption to existing business, residents, and traffic.
They can provide high-quality transit service to support compact, walkable, higher-density development in small and mid-size cities that cannot afford bigger rail systems, offering the potential to significantly increase the constituency for transit in the United States.
Demographics are changing. American households are older and smaller. Singles, not families, are becoming the new majority. Combined with the problem of traffic, these changes are having a dramatic impact on the housing market, as evidenced by the renewed popularity of loft and condo projects in urban neighborhoods, many of them early streetcar suburbs such as the Central West End in St. Louis or Midtown Sacramento.
Almost every American city once had an extensive streetcar system which extended the pedestrian environment out into neighborhoods, served as collector for intercity rail systems, and stopped at every street corner to stimulate a density and intensity of uses that made for exemplary and engaging downtowns. If the high cost of providing parking drives development today, streetcars make it possible for developers to provide less parking and put their money into high quality design, building materials, and community benefits such as affordable housing and parks. Streetcars also enable more residents to give up a car, freeing up a substantial amount of money for other household expenses.
BUT…WHY NOT A BUS?
Fixed guideway transit, such as streetcars, attract more riders and serves as a greater catalyst to development than buses. Developers need the permanence of the rail investment to help reduce risk.
Fixed rail is easier to understand because potential riders see the rails in the street and know a streetcar will come by, whereas bus riders need a schedule and route map, and routes are often changed.
Streetcars and the higher quality service they provide appeal to a wider demographic range of riders, which translates into greater support and ridership.
Streetcars signify the local government’s interest in a long-term commitment to a neighborhood, which helps stimulate and enhance development and redevelopment.
STREETCAR HIGHLIGHTS:
- Car owners spend $9,000 a year on gas, insurance, and car maintenance.
- Streetcars are not like buses. they are easier to enter and exit from, don’t lurch in and out of traffic because they run on fixed guideways, they are quieter, less threatening to pedestrians, and don’t smell of exhaust.
- Streetcars are one-third the per-mile less cost to build than light rail; $12 million per mile compared to $30 million per mile for light rail.
- The permanence of the fixed rails, developers and investors say, helps reduce the risk and the higher density and lower parking ratios typically permitted in downtowns make projects more profitable.
- Streetcars will increase property values and stimulate business because more customers will be walking down the street. The streetcar operations will be funded by revenue raised through business-improvement districts.
- Streetcars have been proven to increase tax revenue sand sales revenues.
John Schneider joins Brian Thomas on 55KRC to discuss the Cincinnati Streetcar
John Schneider, aka Captain Transit aka Mr. Streetcar, was back on the radio this morning. He was invited to join Brian Thomas on his regular morning show on 55 KRC.
The two discussed the first phase of the Cincinnati Streetcar project in detail, and also discussed the merits of rail transportation in general.
The discussion started with Brian Thomas going on an uninterrupted prelude where he discussed the City of Cincinnati’s finances and its lack of ability to proceed with the project.
“The fundamental problem with Cincinnati, and the fundamental opportunity is we’ve lost population and we need to repopulate our city. We have a city that was built for 500,000 people, but we only have 300,000 people today,” Schneider explained to an agreeable Thomas. “But the snow still falls on Martin Luther King Boulevard and it has to be plowed, the grass still grows in Mt. Airy Forest and it has to be cut.”
Schneider went on to explain that investing in the Cincinnati Streetcar will help stabilize the city’s tax base and repopulate the city, in perhaps the greatest challenge and opportunity the Queen City has.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Thomas spent almost the entire interview using anecdotes and anti-city hysteria to support his points, but he did loudly profess how much of a bus fan he is. You can listen to the full interview on 55 KRC’s website, or stream it below. The interview lasts approximately 30 minutes.
Why Can’t We Just Run Buses to See if the Streetcar Will Work?
Question: What would the harm be in dedicating buses to the streetcar route for a few years to see if the benefits are starting to be realized before spending $128 million to build the streetcar?
Answer: The harm would be threefold—direct costs, opportunity costs, and lack of probative value.
The direct cost would be the costs of acquiring and operating the buses. In order for the bus experiment to be as accurate as possible, the buses would have to have a similar capacity and frequency to the streetcars. I think we can all agree if the city were only running one bus along the route, it wouldn’t come anywhere close to approximating streetcar system. Similarly adding a few automobile ferries next to the Brent Spence Bridge wouldn’t accurately simulate adding additional lanes.
A single streetcar carries around 170 people. A bus carries around 45. The City plans on purchasing 7 streetcars. A bus fleet with a similar capacity would number 26.4. If you take into account maintenance and the need for spare vehicles, you could probably get away with 24 buses. Each bus costs about $350,000, so 24 buses would cost $8,400,000.00.
Operating the buses would cost money as well. Driver’s salaries are the largest operating expense in any transit system. (One of the benefits of the streetcar is that a single driver’s salary is spread over 170 passengers instead of 45.) To estimate the operating cost per bus I divided METRO’s total budget ($94.5 million) over the number of buses it operates (391) to come up with a per bus per year operating cost of $241,687.98. Based on this projection 24 buses would result in a yearly operating cost of $5,800,511.51.
Running this system for a few years as suggested would be a very expensive test. Three years would cost $25,801,534.53 in capital and operating costs.
But there are also opportunity costs as well. The City estimates “Costs can be conservatively estimated to escalate $5.1 million each year beyond 2010.” Delaying the streetcar three years would cost $15.3 million in inflationary costs. With many construction companies in need of work and lower material prices, now is the time to build. The other opportunity cost would be the delay of benefits to City that would come from having a streetcar. I will not attempt to quantify them in this posting, but it is something of which to be aware.
Combining the direct and opportunity costs leads to a cost of the three year trial of over $40 million. The next question: would this trial produce accurate results? My belief is it would not.
The Streetcar will produce two main types of benefits—ridership benefits and economic development benefits. The bus experiment will not accurately predict either type of benefit
Ridership on the bus experiment will be lower than it would be on a streetcar. Route legibility of a bus route is worse than a streetcar. Unlike a bus, someone unfamiliar with a streetcar route can see the tracks and know where the line goes. People are more likely to get on public transit when they know where it is going.
Additionally the bus experiment assumes transit riders exhibit “mode-neutrality” when in reality they do not. Mode-neutrality presumes that a transit rider will exhibit no preference for rail over buses. This is not the case. Many visitors to New York or Chicago will take the subway or the “L” but will not ride a bus to get around. For an example closer to home, think about the airport. If you had to choose one or the other, would you rather take the train to Concourse B or the shuttle bus connection to Concourse C
Finally you will not receive the same economic development benefits with the bus experiment as you would with a streetcar. The reason the streetcar encourages economic development is because it is a permanent infrastructure investment. The tracks are laid in the ground and will not move. People know that in 20 years the streetcar will still be running that route and make long term investments, like buying a house or opening a business, based on that fact.
By contrast, the bus experiment is not only temporary it is explicitly temporary. Anyone who could wait to make an investment along the line likely would wait until the final decision on the streetcar could be made. If an entrepreneur wanted to locate a new business along the streetcar line because it would attract more customers and make it easier to get to the store, she would likely wait until the decision had been made on whether or not to actually build the streetcar before making the investment. Fewer people will buy house or open a business along a bus route that will stop running in a few years and may or may not lead to a streetcar than would invest along an announced and funded streetcar line. Imagine if new exit was built off of I-75 that would be closed in two years if it didn’t receive enough usage, business owners would be reluctant to locate there for fear of their access being cut off. The same would be true of a temporary bus experiment.
Because there will be lower ridership, less economic development, and considerable costs, conducting a bus experiment along the streetcar line would be imprudent and the results of such experiment would not accurately predict the success of the streetcar. That would be the harm.
