Streetcar Study Passes Unanimously
April 7, 2010 at 6:55 am | General | Tags: complete streets, Cultural District, Downtown, Infrastructure, Near Southside, streetcar, Transit, transportation
After much discussion by the city council (including some rather uninformed commentary by a couple of council members), late last night the council voted unanimously to hire HDR to conduct the full streetcar study that we have been waiting on. Phases 1 and 2 will address many subjects – exact alignments and starter corridor, funding, ridership, economic benefits (including how much development could result along the corridors), etc. After these phases, it will be decided whether HDR will conduct Phase 3, the full engineering plan.
There are still many challenges ahead for streetcar supporters, and there will be plenty more work to do to help make this a reality. It will take time, but a significant roadblock was cleared last night. We now have what is arguably the finest set of transit minds in the country on our side doing the full study, so we are in good hands. We’ll save the analysis, and the correcting of certain council members, for another time. For now, we’ll just say “thank you” to the supporters who spent a long night in council chambers and a “thank you” to all those in the public and private sectors who have worked to get us this far. All your support had a very real impact on how this vote went.