Oct 1, 2008
Joel Burns – Sights From The Streetcars Of The Pacific Northwest
By: Joel Burns
(Note from Kevin: This post marks the beginning of a series of updates from District 9 City Councilman Joel Burns, sending us photos and perhaps even a little video from the Streetcar Study Committee’s trip to the Pacific Northwest to study the modern streetcar systems of Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma. I just want to thank Joel for taking the time from what will be a very busy few days to send us updates. You should be seeing Joel’s name under the post’s title each time he updates. And now, here’s Joel.)
Members of the Fort Worth Modern Streetcar Study Committee, along with the Mayor, seven Council members, a group of City planning staffers and other community leaders arrive in Seattle Thursday for the start of an intense two-day study tour of Pacific Northwest modern streetcar systems.
To date, the Study Committee has reviewed Fort Worth’s previous rail studies and the streetcar systems in peer cities, as well as conducted an preliminary assessment of cost and potential funding sources. The culmination of their Phase 1 tasks was to determine is a streetcar system is worth pursuing at this time. The answer to that question was a uniform “yes.”
The objective of this week’s fact-finding trip is to make first-hand observations of the systems in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington and Portland, Oregon and receive briefings from local experts in those cities so that Fort Worth stakeholders can assess the costs and benefits of a modern streetcar system, formulate the criteria for successful starter corridors, start to identify a funding strategy, and identify next steps for implementation.
- ITINERARY
Thursday evening: Seattle
8-10 p.m. (Pacific): Arrive at the hotel for presentation from Seattle Streetcar Project Manager Ethan Melone and others from the City of Seattle on fast-tracking the development of a system and lessons learned in development of Seattle’s system. - Friday morning: Seattle
7 a.m.: Additional presentations from local experts including Seattle’s Director of Transportation, the Mayor’s Office director of the project financial plan, and local developers.
8:30-10:30: Tour the Seattle system and explore development activity along the route. - Friday mid-day: Tacoma
11:45: Arrive Tacoma; Tour Sound Transit’s Operation and Maintenance facility.
12:15: Tour Tacoma’s streetcar line and meet with Tacoma staff, developers and local experts. - Friday evening: Portland
6:15-10:00: Tour Portland system and presentation by Vicky Diede, Portland’s Streetcar Project Manager and others. - Saturday morning: Portland
7:30-10:00 a.m.: Meeting with local developers and other experts and presentations by Rick Gustafson, Portland Streetcar Director of Operations and others.
10:30 Light rail trip to Portland airport and return to DFW
2:30-5:50: Amtrak from Tacoma to Portland
A total of 47 participants will make the trip including the Mayor and 7 Council members, 12 Study Committee members; 10 City Planning staff; 5 member of the Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council; 6 from other agencies such as The T, Downtown Fort Worth Inc., Tarrant County, and the North Texas Council of Governments; and a small group of consultants.
I would like to thank the Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council for providing $10,000 to funding of this study trip. An additional $25,000 came from fundraising from Downtown Fort Worth, Inc, other agencies and individuals such as the participating consultants. I especially want to thank DFWI president Andy Taft, who chairs the Study Committee for his leadership of the Committee and helping to find the funding to pay for this trip. City staffers David Gaspers, Cinde Gilliland and Dana Burghdoff are also to be commended for all the work they did in preparation for this tour.
Lastly, I want to thank our friends at FortWorthology.com and WestandClear.com for allowing me to post updates from this study trip, focusing on what we learn along the way.
Cities across the country are looking to modern streetcars as forward-thinking future transportation solutions (see this post from earlier this week in Salt Lake City: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10564326).
I am excited about the prospect of bringing such a high-quality transit service to Fort Worth to provide circulation in our downtown and urban core, reduce automobile trips, and connect and integrate into a more comprehensive transportation system in North Texas that includes light and commuter rail. I am also excited about the potential to revitalize historic neighborhoods and create sustainable development that accompanies such streetcar systems.
More tomorrow from Seattle.
Councilmember Joel Burns,
City of Fort Worth, District 9
Fort Worth Streetcar Study Committee: http://www.fortworthgov.org/planninganddevelopment/misc.aspx?id=57270
This post makes it seem that this trip was completely paid for with private funds. That is not true. Tarrant County representative Renee Lamb submitted a $1,200 voucher for out of state travel to the County Commissioners Court.
I’m hoping that the bulk of the 47 people are paying their own way.
Just in case you want to see the travel voucher
http://courtbook.tarrantcounty.com/sirepub/cache/2/to2smnbg1zoffqbtogowlg45/15782310012008084517447.PDF
Page two of the PDF
Most of the articles that I have seen only mention that the city is spending $25,000 for the trip and fail to mention the $35,000 in donations. Tarrant County Judge Glenn Whitley and his staff have been participating in this committee from the beginning. Being responsible for transportation issues in Tarrant County (of which Fort Worth is a big part of), I don’t see this as being something the county shouldn’t be involved in. They are sending one person in comparison with about 30 or 40 from City of Fort Worth?
I can’t justify every single staffer who is going and I realize that junkets have been rife for abuse by elected officials, but from what I have seen of the itinerary, there will be no time for sightseeing or visiting with family by the attendees. They were also told only to pack for carry-on and to bring good walking shoes. Seems a somewhat justifiable trip if we are going to turn around and make a decision on whether to spend several hundred million on a starter system.
I want to commend Joel and the group for making use of Amtrak on the trip rather than flying from Seatac to Portland. Bet that’s a lovely ride. Good to see instead of wasting a plane trip to get there.
Kevin,
And sending 47 people on a boondoggle is a good use of plane trips?
I don’t see this as a boondoggle. If the committee can get good advice and information from visiting the PacNW’s streetcars before we build our own, then I say fantastic. This little amount of money will have been worth it.
Unless of course you view the streetcar system as a boondoggle, which I strongly disagree with as well. It’s going to be an important part of this city’s future as we densify and improve our transit systems.
Calling something a “boondoggle” doesn’t make it so. And frankly, I’m a little surprised that here, on Fort Worthology, a blog dedicated to promoting urbanization, transit, and attempts to slow down car-dependent sprawl, that I’m getting much/any real pushback about this. It’s not like I hide my motives here – anybody who’s read this site for more than three minutes can figure out that I’m a big transit supporter and that this blog is written from the viewpoint that transit = good, so by a corollary transit fact-finding missions to learn more about it before we spend money on it = good as well. It’d be like going to a car blog and posting negative comments about sprawl and car dependency – seems a bit like a waste of effort.
I emailed a friend of mine in Portland to get her opinion of their streetcar system. Sadly, she kind of burst my optimistic bubble:
“It surprises me that the Metroplex thinks we have a model streetcar system. Everyone here hates it and thinks it was a huge waste of money. Ridership is always low since the bus/lightrail system is much more convenient. Hopefully DFW can come up with some way to make it work.”
I know that there are certainly opinions to be had on both sides of the issue – but I thought it was interesting to get this perspective from a urban Portlander firsthand.
Tom,
I’ve talked to Portland residents and your friend’s experience doesn’t agree with what I’ve been told. I’ve never heard “everybody hates it and thinks it’s a waste of money” – on the contrary, I’ve heard quite a few great reviews of the streetcar, and with the massive amounts of development around the line it seems hard to call it a “waste of money.” I’ve also never heard that ridership is “always low” – in fact, most sources indicate significantly higher ridership on the streetcar compared to busses on the same routes (one figure was as high as 700% higher ridership).
Not sure what her experiences are, but they don’t jibe with most things I’ve been told by Portlanders. It’s also important to recognize that the streetcar is a neighborhood circulator – it doesn’t serve the same function as a light rail line like Portland’s MAX or the DART trains.
So, because the site is geared towards urbanization, you agree with the need to send 47 people on a boondoggle at taxpayers expense?
Doug,
As I said, I don’t consider it a boondoggle. So your line of questioning and my viewpoint are never going to intersect.
I’ll say it again – I do not have a problem with the trip (and it’s not entirely at taxpayer expense, by the way). I also do not consider either the trip or the streetcar project to be a boondoggle in any way, shape, or form.
@Kevin… Yeah, she was kind of a ol’ crank anyway.
And regarding the boondoggle sentiments… How dare they! That’s 3 cents of my hard earned money wasted on improving our lives!
Lighten up people! This is hardly a what you’d call a boondoggle.
PS. Please stop using the word “boondoggle”. It’s replaced “maverick” as the most annoying word of the week.
It is my understanding that the study group members either paid their own way or were sponsored by donations. That seems very reasonable to me. As for every city councillor save one and the number of city staff, I imagine their costs were largely at taxpayer expense. But, if Fort Worth is going to make a decision to spend several hundred million dollars on a system, then I do not have a problem with City Council knowing what they are voting for or against. Also, there is a direct correllation between construction of the line, new development and increased tax revenue for the city, so it seems highly likely that we will get our $25k back in the near future.
[...] … Streetcar Director of Operations and others. 10:30 Light rail trip to Portland airport and return to DFW A total of 47 participants will make the trip including the Mayor and 7 Council members, 12 Study Committee members; 10 City Planning staff; 5 member of the Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council; 6 … Joel Burns – Streetcar Blogging From The Pacific Northwest [...]