The I-35W Widening, Freedom of Transportation, and Developer Hand-Outs

September 9, 2011 at 7:15 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , ,

It’s amazing the huge double-standard still applied to transportation projects in Fort Worth. And it’s amazing how we try to have our cake and eat it too, wanting some shiny mixed-use developments in the central city but not even considering that maybe we should be doing things differently in the far-flung parts of Fort Worth, or how all these things do – and don’t – work together.

Casey Norton, in a story on WFAA:

Drivers who get stuck staring at the bumpers on Interstate-35W know it can take up to an hour to make the 20 mile drive from Denton County to downtown Fort Worth.

Developers, who would like to build on thousands of empty acres, are constantly asked when will the interstate will provide access instead of a choking point.

“You’ve got to see concrete being poured,” said Mike Berry, President of Hillwood Properties. “Got to see dirt being moved. Got to see real construction progress being made before you can convince anyone we’re moving in the right direction.”

He said his company has not stopped its plans because of the gridlock on I-35, but he does get asked about it when companies and residents look into the Alliance corridor in North Fort Worth.

Sigh. OK, first of all, this is what building Interstate highways, not providing any alternative means of transportation at all, and allowing developers – like, uh, Hillwood – to build segregated-use sprawl pods that have zero accommodation for anything but private automobiles will get you: huge traffic problems. Failure of planning, failure of development.

What nobody’s saying is what this I-35W widening project really is – a Band-Aid. A $1.2 billion Band-Aid, at that. An absurdly expensive Band-Aid on top of a big, messy compound fracture, that we’re then going to let the local bully resume punching after it’s completed.

There’s a phenomenon in traffic engineering called “induced traffic”. Basically, as the supply of lanes increases, people will drive more to take advantage of that new capacity. It’s been widely observed for decades, but is still often ignored by the road-building lobbies and traffic engineers who like to build new roads, and by politicians eager to prove they’re “doing something” for the exurbs, even if that solution doesn’t work in the long run. (There’s a good introduction to induced traffic on the Streetswiki.)

We’ve got a congested road here, and the “common sense” solution is “well, add more capacity! More lanes!” So, we do – to the tune of $1.2 billion – and yeah, temporarily, traffic might be better. What will quickly happen, though, is that people out on the exurban fringe will start driving more and using that new capacity, because hey, it’s so much easier to get down I-35 now. Compounding that is developers – like Hillwood – who will build more sprawl development on former farm and ranch land, development that will have no accommodation for anything beyond personal automobiles. Development that will not link together with its neighbors in any kind of walkable or bikeable manner, requiring residents and visitors to use their cars and take up that capacity for even the shortest of trips. Like the current situation along I-35, only more of it.

Pretty soon, the New Improved Wider I-35W will start to look a lot like the current I-35W, except there will be even more cars jammed on it than before, and even more land gone to pavement and single-use sprawl pods. Pollution, health problems, traffic nightmares – and so the cycle repeats itself.

There’s a saying in our circles that goes “adding lanes to reduce congestion is like loosening your belt to reduce your weight”, and that’s a pretty apt comparison (another that applies: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”) For $1.2 billion, I’d hope we’d be more interested in some genuine solutions, like building actual transportation alternatives, instead of temporary fixes that will cause even worse problems down the line.

At $1.2 billion, we’re in the ballpark of something genuinely useful, like a real light rail line – not a half-hearted commuter train, but actual light rail. DART’s new 28-mile Green Line cost $1.8 billion, and I’d wager it will prove to be a significantly more positive piece of infrastructure to the health of its city in the long-haul than a wider I-35W – it encourages walkable development instead of car-dependent sprawl, encourages people to get out and moving, reduces pollution and congestion by getting cars off the road. Meanwhile, we’ll still be stuck with no transportation alternatives to the north side of town after this I-35W project happens.

And we’re not even considering changing our zoning and development practices to build our suburban areas as actual, walkable villages that can allow choice of mobility and choice of living arrangement instead of single-use anti-walking pods isolated along collector roads.

There’s another piece of this that irks, though.

Here we have a news piece that is mainly concerned with how excited and supportive big sprawl developers like Hillwood are to have this shiny, wide new I-35 to support their car-dependent developments. It’s sort of like how urban infill developers were excited and supportive of the prematurely ended Fort Worth Modern Streetcar project, which would help them build more dense central-city projects that could be less dependent upon cars.

So, where are the City Council representatives like Jordan and Zimmerman, the Star-Telegram Editorial Board, and “concerned citizens” lining up to oppose the wider I-35W as a hand-out to developers? After all, this was part of the reason these same people opposed the streetcar – “if these developers want it so bad, they can pay for it themselves” and whatnot. If the streetcar was a developer hand-out, then I-35W is, too – an even more expensive hand-out at that!

In truth, every piece of transportation infrastructure is a hand-out to developers in some way or another, because our transportation systems shape our development in a very real and fundamental way. In other words, as I wrote in March, you get the sort of development you build your transportation for:

So, where are the calls for developers like Cassco or the homebuilders in Cleburne to pay for the nearly $1.5 billion Southwest Parkway, which is undeniably a benefit to projects of theirs like Edwards Ranch (there’s a Whole Foods planned there – but not until the Parkway is built)? Where are the calls for developers like Hillwood to foot the bill for the I-35 widening that will undoubtedly benefit developments like Alliance?

To call a transit project a “handout for developers” and a roadway “necessary public infrastructure” is an enormous double-standard. The reality is that every transportation project is also an economic development project – every transportation project has impacts for development.

Transportation and development/land use are deeply, deeply entwined.

The I-35W widening getting a free pass from these same people and bodies – at fifteen times the cost of the streetcar – and not getting shouted down as a developer hand-out, shows how far Fort Worth still has to go to treat its future seriously. So much of this city is still working out of the 20th century Cheap Oil, Endless Freeways playbook, which is quickly getting shredded by the world of the 21st century. We continue down our old ruts at our own peril.

We shouldn’t be so gung-ho to widen I-35 until we have a serious, comprehensive transportation plan ready to go that will address the need for real alternatives, and a true rethinking of how and what we allow developers to build on the fringe of the city. For this kind of price, it’s quite possible we could be building some genuinely nice transit to serve the same sort of route more efficiently and provide more freedom of transportation – actual choice in their mobility – for the residents of Fort Worth, rather than continuing to shackle these people to the costs of cars and oil.

This isn’t sustainable, either from an environmental or economic standpoint. Only better land use and more effective transportation alternatives can genuinely solve traffic issues – working from the sprawl playbook of “just widen the road” in the 21st century is a dead end.




DFWian: Dallas and Fort Worth Drop Streetcar Plans in Favor of Badass Urban Ziplines
Posted in the Fort Worthology Linklog

DFWian: great new site, or greatest new site?




Cincy Streetcar Projects 3-to-1 ROI in Local Economic Development
Posted in the Fort Worthology Linklog

Streetcar Projects 3-to-1 ROI in Local Economic Development « CincyStreetcar Blog.

On the subject of “competing for mindshare and dollars with our peer cities” – Cincinnati’s upcoming streetcar looks to have the same sort of economic impact that Fort Worth’s was (conservatively) estimated to have. Of course, theirs is being built. Ours is not. The difference? Cincy has a city government with a vision for the future, not a city council that’s half-full of status-quo attitudes, cowardice, and misinformation.




Pimp My Molly the Trolley, and Dallas Taking FW Streetcar Funds?

January 4, 2011 at 10:09 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , , ,

People have been asking about these two links from the Star-Telegram, and it’s time to weigh in on them.

First up, the story on The T slathering some faux-old-timey-trolley bits on a few of their existing buses to expand the Molly the Trolley system for Super Bowl crowds:

A fleet of rubber-tire streetcars known as Molly the Trolley will play a big role in moving people around Fort Worth from Jan. 28 to Feb. 6, when crowds will likely swarm to the area in search of parties, ESPN broadcasts, celebrity sightings and all things football-related.

The trolleys — bedecked with the city’s Molly longhorn symbol — are getting a makeover that includes fresh paint and new mahogany paneling. They normally circulate only downtown, offering workers and visitors free rides between upscale hotels and the Fort Worth Convention Center.

For Super Bowl week, however, the trolleys will run on expanded routes that include the city’s museums and the Stockyards.

All well and good, I suppose.  The article mentions that employees from The T’s body shop volunteered to make the conversion, which is actually pretty cool of them.  Then, the Star-Telegram makes the poorly-informed decision to equate the temporary Molly expansion for the Super Bowl with the modern streetcar study:
Although the expanded use of the trolleys is just temporary, it could lead to changes in the way the T is perceived by area residents. Last month, the Fort Worth City Council rejected a plan to build a rail-based streetcar system connecting roughly the same areas that the Molly the Trolley system will serve.

During the streetcar debate, T officials disclosed that they had determined that they could provide a rubber-tire trolley service for a fraction of the cost of rail-based streetcars.

The made-over buses are even better for Molly the Trolley service in the Stockyards than the real trolleys, because they have a tight turning radius and can fit better on narrow streets, Anderson said.

Sigh.

First of all, let’s all be honest about what Molly the Trolley really is, shall we?  It’s a tourist shuttle.  That’s all it really amounts to in the grand scheme.  It was created from a combination of Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. and The T putting together a fake “trolley” using disguised buses to shuttle tourists between the Bass family’s candy wonderland of Sundance Square to other parts of Downtown like the Convention Center/Omni Hotel and the Sheraton.  It also serves to transport some number of downtown office works during lunch, but I’d wager that tourists and Sundance visitors are its main users.  To be clear:  there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s a darn sight better than it not being there.  This isn’t to say that Molly is useless.

However, to try to inflate Molly into some genuine alternative to real mass transit improvements is absurd.

A fake vintage trolley running between tourist attractions like Sundance, the Stockyards, and the museums isn’t a bad thing, but it is in no way a substitute for a modern streetcar system, a light rail project, or even a full-up Bus Rapid Transit system.  Molly’s prettier than a standard T bus, sure, but it still suffers from all the shortcomings of a conventional bus system:  less easily understood routes in comparison to streetcars, light rail, and BRT (since there’s no permanent infrastructure), less comfortable than streetcars and light rail (it’s still rubber tires on the same bumpy roads), lower ridership potential than streetcars, light rail, or BRT (due to the lack of fixed infrastructure, comfort/appeal, and more), and no real potential for redevelopment and investment along the route, unlike streetcars and light rail.  That so many people actually consider a few more gussied-up buses a serious alternative to real transit investment does not bode well for Fort Worth’s transit future and our leadership at City Hall and The T.

Let’s go with the premise that certain members of The T think they would be better off building rubber-tired transit instead of a modern streetcar or a light rail line.  If they’re serious about creating a more effective bus system that would even begin to approach the effectiveness of fixed rail transit, there’s only one real way to do it right:  Bus Rapid Transit.  Fully modern (usually articulated, streetcar/light rail-style) buses running on dedicated lanes with fixed, light-rail-style stations and boarding mechanisms.

A good example would be Bogota’s TransMilenio system:

That’s genuine Bus Rapid Transit.  Here, the closest The T has come is what they call “Bus Rapid Transit,” in reality a sort of half-assed version:  there’s plans to run articulated buses on a few routes (like East Lancaster), and perhaps give them signal prioritization.  None of the dedicated lanes or fixed, easier-to-use rail-style stations.

Real BRT doesn’t have the development and investment potential of streetcars or light rail, but it has shown some good ridership potential.  If City Hall and The T want to talk about making genuine Bus Rapid Transit for our central city mobility, that’d be one thing.  I’d love to talk about it, if it’ll help move the city forward.  I’d not take it over fixed rail transit if I had my druthers, but sometimes you have to play the hand you’re dealt, and all that.  But to say that Molly, designed mainly to shuffle tourists back and forth between a few destinations, is in any way superior to a real transit investment like streetcars, light rail, or genuine BRT is absolutely absurd.

There ARE lessons we should take from Molly and apply to The T’s bus system as a whole.  The T’s bus system needs a major overhaul.  Its routes are often confusing, needlessly spaghetti-like and slow, and so infrequent as to be incredibly unappealing.  It takes forever to respond to changes in the city’s makeup – for example, there’s not so much as a peep about improving service in areas like the 7th Street and Magnolia Avenue urban villages, where new residents and businesses who are going to be more transit-inclined are moving in.  Using some of Molly’s aspects like extremely simple and straightforward routes would be a great move, and such items have had success in other cities.  Let’s just be honest about the problems and the solutions, and realize that adding a few more fake trolley buses on some tourist routes is not a substitute for the real transit investment this city desperately needs. Let’s not just put more lipstick on the cow, so to speak.

(The quote about the fake trolley buses being better than actual streetcars for the Stockyards because of “turning radius” issues is pretty absurd as well – first, what’s “better?”  A fake trolley bus that might be able to turn tighter but won’t have the ridership or development potential?  And really, we’ll never know if turning radius issues were actually going to be a problem in the Stockyards, because we ended our streetcar study prematurely before preliminary engineering could be completed, but hey, why complicate things with facts?)

Now, the second article:  there’s plans afoot to try to snag the $25 million streetcar grant from the Federal Transit Administration that Fort Worth so famously lost and send it to Dallas instead, where there are streetcar projects on the march.

I don’t blame Dallas and the regional government at all for wanting to grab that piece of funding pie.  Were the tables turned, I’d certainly want Fort Worth to go for a grant that Dallas let go.  If you’ve got a city that’s actually serious about transit investments, why not?  I think it’s a real long shot, and that Dallas likely won’t succeed, but you can’t blame them for trying.

Within the story is a quote, however, that ought to be commented on:

Although it’s likely the money will be lost, Fort Worth Councilman Jungus Jordan said he’d rather see Dallas get it. “My guess is, there might be somebody upset about it,” said Jordan, who voted against the streetcar plan. “But I wouldn’t think anybody who is regionally minded would have a problem with that.”

The council of governments is responsible for ensuring that both sides of Dallas-Fort Worth receive proportionate shares of federal funding, Jordan said. By helping Dallas get the streetcar funding, he said, Fort Worth could win additional support within the Metroplex region for funding a proposed commuter rail line from southwest Fort Worth to Grapevine and Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

That’s right.  District 6 Councilman Jungus Jordan, the flip-flopper who reversed his support for the streetcar and helped lead efforts (alongside the behind-the-curtain downtown business interests) to prematurely stop the streetcar study before it could be completed, the man who shares a lot of the blame for Fort Worth losing the grant in the first place, would be A-OK with handing it over to Dallas to help them get even farther ahead of Fort Worth on transit issues.

That money is going to be lost, either to Dallas or to some other city outside of the Metroplex entirely, in part because Jungus Jordan promoted (whether accidentally or intentionally) bad information and a lack of understanding about the streetcar project.  We’re in this situation in no small part because of Jungus Jordan.  Incredible that he’s still a go-to for transit quotes when the streetcar ball was dropped so badly.

(The quote about trying to use this to get Fort Worth money for commuter rail is rich as well, coming from the man who once made it a point to support the streetcar with language like “it’s not commuter rail OR streetcars.”  And I’d say it’s just as likely, if not more likely, that the Feds will use this as a reason to deny Fort Worth more dollars for transportation projects rather than just shift it around to commuter rail, after the way we waffled on the last grant and completely failed to do our due diligence.)

Regional-minded thinking is good – to a point.  There still needs to be a sense of competition between Fort Worth and Dallas, though – that’s how we move both cities forward.  Dallas knows it’s competing with other places in the Metroplex and with its peer cities.  Apparently, we’re OK with just ceding our own dollars to whoever wants them.  It’s a failure of government in a very real way – failing to do our due diligence, and then turning around and helping our competition get their hand in our wallet.  Simply incredible.




Debunking Carter Burdette – Council Opponents’ Streetcar Criticisms Don’t Hold Up

December 16, 2010 at 11:29 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , , , , ,

An e-mail has been circulating recently from District 7 City Council representative Carter Burdette, outlining the reasons why he voted against the modern streetcar project and helped kill the study.  As this e-mail has been forwarded to us by numerous Fort Worth citizens, it is clear that there is still a lot of interest and debate happening about this project, and it is necessary to publicly address these points.  If these points are legitimately why Carter voted against the project, we feel it is important to make clear where these points do not hold up to scrutiny so that the council and the public can be fully informed.

Councilman Burdette’s points follow, with our comments after each.  We have confirmed the accuracy of our rebuttals with city staff.  In addition, we have a very interesting letter concerning streetcar funding and the “putting the taxpayers at risk” portion of the opposition voiced during the council vote.  That letter will follow after the rebuttal to Councilman Burdette’s e-mail.

From: Carter Burdette

Thank you for your recent email regarding the Council’s vote on streetcars.  I could not support going forward at this time because:

1.  The Federal money would not be paid to us up front, but would be a later reimbursement.

Fort Worthology:  This is not accurate.  The reimbursements would be ongoing during the course of the project, not “later” at the end of the project as Carter seems to be saying.  The city, or whoever winds up building it, would submit monthly invoices for reimbursement.  This is how our Federally-funded road projects work as well – it is perfectly normal and very common, and is not risky at all.

2.  Economic development dollars would not be realized by the TIFs – if at all – until 10 or 15 years down the road.

Fort Worthology:  First of all, what is he saying – is he arguing that developers probably aren’t interested in building on streetcar lines, and if they are, they aren’t planning on doing it any time soon?  That’s demonstrably false.  We have developers who have assembled parcels of land in the Near Southside and are looking to do high-density residential/mixed-use if there’s a streetcar line.  This is near-term economic development, not “10-15 years down the road.”  Without the streetcar, we’ll likely see those parcels get developed with much less residential, much less density, less valuable projects, or not developed at all.  Secondly, in addition to the development, those developments will almost certainly have retail components on the line, meaning new sales tax revenue going into the city coffers right away.  Further, the Near Southside TIF – TIF #4 – would expire in 2022, only 8 years after the streetcar line started.  After 2022, all tax dollars from the former TIF district would be going into the general fund again.

3.  Therefore, the $85-$90 million needed to build the “starter line” would have to be borrowed by the City.

Fort Worthology:  Any borrowing would involve the TIFs.  The TIFs are projected to generate enough revenue to afford the streetcar even if you assume zero development related to the streetcar, so this risk is heavily overblown.  Borrowing against future revenues is the standard TIF model, thus the “financing” part of their name.  Just because we have pay-as-you-go TIFs doesn’t mean that we’re entering uncharted territory here or putting the general fund at risk.  This strikes us as a real red herring.  The streetcar study has presented a thoughtful and conservative public investment scenario, not a risky one.

Please see our follow-up after the e-mail for further information about the “risk” to the city.

4.  In view of the City’s unfunded retirement plan balance of over $700 million, and the City’s expected budget shortfall the next few years, it is unlikely the City would be able to borrow $85 million without pledging its general fund taxpayers to repay that debt.

Fort Worthology:  See above.  That would be the case if the plan called for bonds secured by the city’s general fund, but since the financing would be secured with TIF revenues, financing shouldn’t be a problem.  That type of TIF financing is done all the time.

5.  I do not believe it is appropriate to saddle the City’s taxpayers with such an additional debt in order to serve less than 2% of our population, and a small number of real estate developers.

Fort Worthology:  He’s right – that wouldn’t be appropriate.  Fortunately, that’s not at all what was being proposed.  ”The city’s taxpayers” aren’t being put on the hook.

6.  To effectively address transportation and ecological needs, the City would have to commit at least another $500 to $600 million to construct an effective streetcar system.

Fort Worthology:  Extremely misleading and untrue.  The starter line could be effective as a standalone system – that’s one of the exact reasons why the starter alignment was chosen, as HDR made the point that even with zero expansion of the system it would be viable on its own merits.  Other cities have similar stand-alone transit systems that worked effectively without expansion, or in cases where they were expanded it was because the expansion was a smart economic decision, not because the initial line’s construction forced them into it.

7.  The majority of City streetcar systems throughout the US have not proven to be economically effective as a transportation or economic development vehicle.

Fort Worthology:  We really wonder where he’s getting this, as streetcar systems large and small across the US thus far have had good track records, even without Portland’s exceptional results.  Even cities as small as Tacoma and Kenosha have seen good results in both transportation and economic development with their streetcars.  (We’re wondering if “economically effective” means he’s still hewing to the tired old double-standard of requiring transit to be profitable but not caring that absolutely no road projects are profitable.)  Based on his council meeting comments, we think he’s basing this on “studies” conducted by Randal O’Toole, a pro-sprawl, anti-rail critic (who receives funding from oil, gas, and highway lobbyists) who makes these same arguments against all forms of rail transportation.  There is ample evidence from the city’s consultants (who are far more reputable, to say the least) demonstrating that this statement is way off the mark.  There are actually fact sheets out there dedicated solely to debunking the inaccurate claims made by O’Toole (for example:  http://www.cnu.org/sites/www.cnu.org/files/DebunkingCato.pdf ).  We spoke with an AICP-certified planner here locally who’s attended many professional conferences over the last 15 years, and he said in no uncertain terms that he’s never heard any public official from a city with a successful urban core say that they relied on guidance from Randal O’Toole & similar people to improve their central city.

Before we close out, though, we wanted to take another pass at the “streetcar is a financial risk to Fort Worth taxpayers if development doesn’t occur” objection raised by Burdette and several other streetcar opponents.  Besides the information we found out above, we’ve been sent an extremely interesting letter that completely flies in the face of this objection.  As far as we know, this letter hasn’t been made very public, so we’ll do it here for you now.

This letter is dated August 23, 2010, and comes from just after Fort Worth was awarded its Federal Transit Administration Grant.  It is from Michael J. Moran, CEO of ORIX Capital Markets, LLC, and was sent to Jesus “Jay” Chapa at the department of Housing and Economic Development at the City of Fort Worth.  We have reproduced the text of the letter below and also provide a PDF version.  The letter reads as follows (emphasis ours):

Dear Jay:

Thank you again for your time and effort in exploring ways in which ORIX Capital Markets may be able to assist the City with the development and financing of certain of its current and long-term business initiatives through the North Tarrant Parkway TIF #7.  We look forward to continuing our discussions and helping the City meet its needs.

Additionally, we read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this past week that Fort Worth received a $25 million streetcar grant from the Federal Transit Administration.  The article mentioned that the City may be looking at various alternatives for a private company to finance a portion of the potential project (including the use), with such financing being repaid through TIF increment expected to be generated by one or more of four tax increment districts.  Coincidentally, we recently discussed with the City of Dallas ways in which we could participate in the development and financing of its streetcar expansion projects.

As you know, we are a local, well-capitalized and creative real estate development and finance company that has the necessary relationships and in-house experience to assist the City with the design, development and construction of a streetcar project.  We also are extremely interested and currently have the capacity to provide the entire $28 million (or such other amount as may be required) needed to match the federal grant and finance the project. Similar to our discussions relative to the North Tarrant Parkway TIF, we are comfortable with securing repayment of our financing arrangement with TIF increment, and would not require the backing of the full faith and credit of the City.

We would like to meet with you and City officials to prove our capabilities and discuss ways in which we could participate in the City’s streetcar initiative.  At your convenience, please give me a call to schedule a meeting.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to call me.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Moran CEO, ORIX Capital Markets, LLC
(PDF Link)

This letter was given to members of the City of Fort Worth Modern Streetcar Task Force months ago as funding options were being reviewed, so it has been freely available to the members of the City Council.  It is curious that the “risk to the taxpayers of Fort Worth” angle has been played up so heavily by opponents of the project, when documentation exists that shows private companies willing to work with the TIFs to provide funding for the project (and not concerned that the TIFs would be unable to pay the investment back) and not put the City’s general fund at any risk.

…




Latest Mitchell Schnurman Streetcar Column

December 15, 2010 at 10:30 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , , , , ,

The latest column in the Star-Telegram from business columnist Mitchell Schnurman is a must read.  In it, he takes a look at fallout from the streetcar blow-up, including the cracks it has revealed to be growing in Fort Worth:

“I hope this does not turn into a ‘we versus them’ in Fort Worth, because we don’t need that,” he said. “That’s not the way you move forward as a city.”

Papering over real differences and sticking with the status quo isn’t a path to progress, either. The streetcar debate revealed deep fissures in the community — between old and young; between commuters and central city residents; and even between downtown and its neighbors to the north and south.

He draws attention to the opposition from downtown leaders and Sundance Square as well:
This is delicate territory, because we’ve always accepted the premise that what’s good for downtown is good for everyone. In many ways, downtown serves as Fort Worth’s leading economic indicator, and it has the clout to go with it.

But if downtown operates as just one more special interest — and is willing to stifle potential competitors in pursuit of its own goals — we should re-examine the bargain.

This includes a mention of the new Will Rogers Memorial Center arena that the Bass family wants to push through (with public funding), a project which hasn’t received nearly the same level of scrutiny from city officials.

It’s a great article.  Go give it a read.




Fort Worth Modern Streetcar Study Prematurely Ended by Mayor, Council

December 8, 2010 at 9:28 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , , , , ,

Not a whole lot to add – it went down exactly as we said it would yesterday. The council and the mayor, by a split vote of 5-3, voted to prematurely end the Fort Worth Modern Streetcar study last night.  Mayor Moncrief, Jungus Jordan (District 6), Zim Zimmerman (District 3), Carter Burdette (District 7), and Danny Scarth (District 4) voted to stop the study.  Joel Burns (District 9), Sal Espino (District 2), and Frank Moss (District 5) voted to continue it. Kathleen Hicks (District 8 ) was absent and did not vote.

This brings to a premature end the latest in a series of studies going back to 1996′s Linkages Plan.  The study was to move into Phase 3 (for which money had already been allocated), which would have given us preliminary engineering and a finalized business plan.  Now, Mayor Moncrief and four council members have decided that they didn’t want the answers they’ve been saying they wanted for months.

Much has been said of the influence the Bass family has had in killing this project, and it’s true – downtown’s influence was strong.  Sundance Square, along with their cohorts at Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. and the Chamber, didn’t want this to go forward.  That much is well established at this point.

At the end of the day, though, it was the Mayor and the council who cast the votes.  A combination of misinformation (whether it was via ignorance or intentional misdirection is a question history will decide), me-first can’t-do attitudes, and complete political spinelessness on the part of the council got us here.  Particularly disappointing is Mayor Moncrief, who has supported the project for years.  He folded to back-room politics and wimped out of standing behind the project.

(A special message to Jungus Jordan:  we appreciate the shout-out.  We’d just like to clarify, as the “local blog” that accused you of flip-flopping, that all we did was link to your own words.  In 2008, you were in support of the project and called it a “no-brainer.”  Now, you’ve voted to stop it.  You made yourself a flip-flopper.  We just linked to the publicly available proof.)

Just a year ago, at the Tracks to the Future conference downtown, Mayor Moncrief said:

Fort Worth does some things very, very well. When we have something we’re proud of, we take ownership. This is ours. We want to enhance it, improve it, strengthen it, protect it. But when we have something we’re not proud of, like our challenges with transportation and mobility, we do something different: we take responsibility.

Rail is the future people mover in this city. Focusing only on roads is short-sighted. We cannot ignore the affects of mobility on our air quality and our quality of life. We must build up, not out. We must concentrate on transit-oriented development.

(Incidentally, at this same conference, Jungus Jordan also spoke of the need to find any way we can to build transit right now, not wait to react to problems.  You’re not making that “I didn’t flip-flop” statement look any better, Jungus.)

He then introduced former Charlotte, NC mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who stood up for what he knew was right and put his political career on the line to build Charlotte’s light rail project.  After facing severe opposition and getting the project built anyway, it was a runaway success, and Mayor McCrory was lauded for having the courage and vision to see the project through.  Mayor McCrory spoke of the need for a strong vision and politicians who will stand up for it.

Fort Worth has proven that we don’t have that.  We have a dramatic and gaping void of vision and leadership at City Hall.  Mayor Moncrief’s words have been shown to be just that – words for political gain, with no action to back them up.

The streetcar study was working – too well.  It was shown to be financially feasible and shown to have good return on investment.  It wasn’t the result that opponents wanted.  They humored the project as long as it didn’t have real definitive numbers that showed it would work – and then they turned on it.  These opponents, some of which were powerful, influential folk, exerted their pressure behind the scenes and got even Moncrief to fold.  The fact that Kathleen Hicks was out of town, robbing the supporters of a vote, was the perfect opportunity for them to stop the study, and they took it.

Fort Worth government has proven beyond all doubt, by stopping a study of a streetcar to get all the facts we needed to make an informed final decision, that they’re more in tune with a few influential power brokers than the health and vitality of the central city at large, not just a swath of downtown.  Stopping this project before the study was finished shows a shocking lack of vision and total spinelessness.

A sentiment expressed by opponents before the vote went down was the hope that this wouldn’t become an “us vs. them” sort of thing after the vote.  By committing the intellectually dishonest and weak-willed act of stopping our funded study before it could give us the answers we said we wanted, they’ve done just that.  Bernie Scheffler of Trinity Bicycles put it this way, better than we could ourselves:

I thought it was interesting how the streetcar-opposing council members last night talked about how they hoped the end of this debate wouldn’t turn into an “us vs. them” situation.  What the hell else would it turn into? You created this, Mr. Mayor. And now you’re going to have to deal with the division you’ve created. There’s us: the young people moving back into the city, trying to make it a better place, buying into your “urban villages,” and “neighborhood empowerment zones.” We want transit options, not more of the same Bass B.S. Then there’s them: grasping at the last straws of the control they have over this city and its money. It’s gonna be a fight, and it’s all your fault for not having the courage to move this city forward in the face of a little backroom opposition from a select few.
Central city rail transit got set back at least ten years last night.  As other cities across the US demonstrate their desire to innovate their way forward and create the sort of urban environments being desired by people looking to make cities their homes, Fort Worth’s been relegated to an also-ran.  We’ve flushed 15 years of studies and money down the drain and handed back $25 million from the Federal Transit Administration.

This isn’t how we grow a sustainable, livable central city.




Council Expected to Stop Streetcar Study Tonight

December 7, 2010 at 9:42 am | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , , , , ,

We’ve learned from multiple sources that at tonight’s city council meeting, the council is expected to vote to stop the modern streetcar study in a split vote. These sources are indicating that Jungus Jordan (District 6), Zim Zimmerman (District 3), Carter Burdette (District 7), and Danny Scarth (District 4) will vote against finishing the study. Mayor Moncrief will join them (he is well-known for not liking split votes – very disappointing, but not surprising, he’d vote against just to avoid a straight split). Joel Burns (District 9), Sal Espino (District 2), and Frank Moss (District 5) should be the votes in favor of finishing the study. Kathleen Hicks (District 8 ) is in Germany and will not be present – her absence could be a factor in the vote swinging against, as Moncrief may well have gone with a 5-4 in favor vote.

This is in spite of the noticeably stronger turnout of pro-streetcar voices than anti-streetcar voices at last week’s town hall – one city hall insider who wished not to be named indicated to us that the speaker cards turned in at the town hall were in the neighborhood of 70-30 in favor of the project. In addition, numerous business and community leaders have spoken out in favor of finishing the study, and the mayor’s own Modern Streetcar Task Force has also recommended moving forward.

While some critics have said the project has been “rushed,” if tonight’s vote goes this way this will bring to a close a streetcar study process that has been going on now for nearly 15 years, dating back to the Linkages Study in 1996, which recommended a streetcar be part of the city’s transportation systems. In fact, studies of streetcars and other similar central city rail projects can be traced back to the ’70s.

Remember, this was not a vote to commit to building the streetcar – this was a vote to finish the latest study of the project, for which money had already been allocated. Finishing this study would have given us a finalized business plan, full preliminary engineering, and more to give us a complete information package to make the final fully-informed yes/no vote on the project at that time. Even as some of these critics, including councilmembers Jordan, Zimmerman, and Burdette have said we “don’t have enough answers” to build the streetcar yet, they’re actively going to stop looking for those answers. What sense does that make?

Besides the opposition from councilmembers Jungus Jordan (the flip-flopper who once called the streetcar project a “no-brainer”) and Zim Zimmerman (who also thought demolishing the Ridglea Theater was a great idea and who pronounced it “too far gone” to save before a new buyer snapped it up with plans to restore it and reopen it) and the misleading and blatantly untruthful editorials being pumped out of the Star-Telegram’s Editorial Board, we feel a lot of the source for this likely result tonight lies with the old money people in downtown Fort Worth, especially the Bass family and their Sundance Square organization. While it’s not been made public until recently, the opposition from downtown has been going on for some time. The general thinking is that Sundance Square wields a lot of power, and is already afraid of competition from up-and-coming urban neighborhoods like West 7th and the Near Southside. So, rather than step up their game and compete, they’re trying to stop a transit project that they believe would only take people out of downtown (not understanding that streetcars run both directions). They’ve been working on both misinformation and flat-out manufactured problems with the project and swinging that hefty influence around to get politicians and other downtown organizations on their side, including the leaders of organizations like Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. and the Chamber of Commerce. We wrote about this downtown-based anti-streetcar campaign recently.

This time, it’s not just some random blog like us saying things like this – Mitchell Schnurman in the Star-Telegram has also exposed this downtown opposition:

Skeptics, including leaders from Downtown Fort Worth Inc. and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, insisted that they were just asking questions and vetting the numbers. Streetcar supporters, including the Trinity River Vision Authority and Fort Worth South, said that they felt ambushed and that the challenges were a pretense for killing the project.

Whatever Sundance Square and the downtown Fort Worth renaissance started out as, it’s becoming clear what it’s become: a parking-dependent urban theme park, not an attempt to build a true central-city rebirth.

Where does downtown get off telling other districts how to spend their TIF money? They got to make a decision for themselves and spend millions and millions of dollars from their TIF to lease parking downtown to provide the subsidized “free” parking there – and now they’re telling areas like the Near Southside and the TRV that they can’t use their TIFs instead to pay for a sustainable rail transit system for their own districts?

Our friend Patrick at Walkable Dallas/Fort Worth recently remarked:

Downtown interests opposing streetcars are inept. Sunbelt downtowns will be rebuilt by their foundation – neighborhoods immediately adjacent.

In his most recent State of the City speech, Mayor Moncrief said the following:

Commuter Rail, street cars, and other alternative modes of transportation also remain a priority for me and this City Council. Unfortunately, Fort Worth and other major metropolitan areas are finding out the hard way what a mistake it was to design and build cities around automobiles years ago. Friends, we cannot continue to focus solely on building more roads for more vehicles. That’s counter productive at best. Business as usual is dead! North Texas requires a transportation overhaul. No more band-aides, no more patches—a complete overhaul!

Unfortunately, it looks as though the mayor will prove tonight that business as usual is alive and well when it comes to the interests of a wealthy and powerful downtown landowner.

This isn’t even a vote to build the thing – it’s a vote to finish our study and get all the answers so that Fort Worth can make a fully informed decision. The early phases of the study have shown strongly that the streetcar project is feasible and could have huge benefits to this city, both economic and livability wise. Now, though, we’re apparently going to bury our heads in the sand and give up even looking for the answers. As peer cities like Tucson, Cincinnati, and Oklahoma City roll ahead with their streetcar projects, we’re not even going to finish the study that would have given us all the data we need to make our decision. Meanwhile, we keep repeating the mantra that Fort Worth has “the best” revitalized downtown in the United States, a statement that’s getting increasingly creaky as the years roll by and cities across the US continue to build real downtowns that function as true neighborhoods integrated with a larger urban core. We’re going to find out that true urbanity doesn’t stop at the edge of a downtown entertainment district. The planning we’ve been doing with our Urban Village program has been outstanding, and now we’re hanging them out to dry by abandoning even finishing a study of the streetcar project.

And then there’s the matter of the Feds – Fort Worth will lose our $25 million Federal Transit Administration grant. There are nearly 70 other cities we beat out for that grant that will be more than happy to take it – our guess is that Washington, D.C. will wind up with it for their streetcar project. Waffling around on the Feds like this also puts funding for other transportation projects here in jeopardy, including the Southwest-to-Northeast commuter rail line, the Tower 55 freight improvements, and even potentially road projects like I-35W.

If you’d like to see the council shut down the study of the streetcar, the council meeting starts tonight at 7:00, though the streetcar is more likely to come up at 8:00 or so we’d imagine.

As our friends at Trinity Bicycles have said:

The simple truth is this: the two TIF districts that would have benefitted most from the initial line offered to foot the bill for the streetcar. Add that to the Federal Grant awarded to the city, and Fort Worth’s general fund would have had to contribute exactly zero dollars to get the starter line built. (Aside from the study dollars which they have already spent, now for nothing).

City staff, task force members, and HDR have done an outstanding job of putting together the streetcar plan. In most other places, an investment that required nothing from the general fund and no tax increase, and which promised a four-to-one return on investment would probably have been a pretty easy decision, but not here with our self-serving downtown interests, misleading editorials, and misinformed councilmembers playing petty council politics – and a politically timid mayor who doesn’t want to be a tiebreaker, even though indications have been that he’s in favor of streetcars. We hope that the streetcar planners and supporters can regroup and come up with another approach to the project to get things rolling, but should this vote go down tonight like it looks it will, modern central city rail transit for Fort Worth will be set back hugely.

There is a huge vacuum of leadership and vision at City Hall these days. A streetcar supporter recently put it this way:

Good ideas don’t die, but they sure as hell take longer when our political leaders can’t muster a few drops of courage.

Business as usual is alive and well in Fort Worth, Texas.




Mitchell Schnurman, Joel Burns with Pro-Streetcar Pieces in Star-Telegram

December 2, 2010 at 2:55 pm | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , , ,

Two pro-streetcar pieces have appeared in the Star-Telegram – one by business columnist Mitchell Schnurman, and one by District 9 councilmember Joel Burns.

Schnurman’s column hits upon similar topics as our own streetcar post from before Thanksgiving, highlighting the now well-exposed opposition to the project from downtown interests. Something Mitchell directly addresses that we chose to keep more vague are the identities of other downtown opposition – namely, Downtown Fort Worth, Inc., and the Chamber of Commerce.

Skeptics, including leaders from Downtown Fort Worth Inc. and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, insisted that they were just asking questions and vetting the numbers. Streetcar supporters, including the Trinity River Vision Authority and Fort Worth South, said that they felt ambushed and that the challenges were a pretense for killing the project.

He goes over the study thus far, including reiterating his supporting viewpoint:

The only reason to vote no on Tuesday would be if the study’s early work showed that a streetcar project isn’t feasible. That certainly is not the case.

He also points out that when Fort Worth went for the Federal grant, two of the project’s current downtown-based opponents – Andy Taft of Downtown Fort Worth, Inc., and Bill Thornton of the Chamber – wrote “glowing” letters of support, indicating something changed behind the scenes to bring about their opposition:

“Fort Worth’s streetcar network will be a strong catalyst for the types of walkable, high-density, mixed-use neighborhoods needed to attain the goal of a more sustainable future for our country,” wrote Andrew Taft, president of Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. The Fort Worth Chamber, wrote President Bill Thornton, would appreciate support for “this very important community project, which will improve economic opportunities for all residents and the sustainability of the region.”

Meanwhile, Councilmember Joel Burns submitted his own op-ed piece, indicating his support of the project and his desire to use it to improve the way Fort Worth government interacts with the citizens:

In return, council members should make tonight the beginning of a renewed partnership and discussion between Fort Worth residents and their government. After the meeting, if you agree that streetcar discussion is too important to cut short, ask your council member to vote in favor of completing the study and, with that same vote, to make a renewed commitment to a meaningful public conversation that allows us all to make informed choices about Fort Worth’s future. This continued public discussion on streetcars could lead to an even higher quality of life in Fort Worth, with more transportation choices, reduced traffic congestion, improved air quality and new economic development that could fund parks, pools and libraries. Those are possibilities we must explore in open partnership with all Fort Worth residents.



Streetcar Arrival/Unveiling Time Lapse

November 23, 2010 at 3:14 pm | Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: , ,

This video, courtesy of the Trinity River Vision Authority, shows the modern streetcar arriving for display and being unveiled the next day. Great thinking on their part, setting up the camera to catch all this.

Happy Thanksgiving, Fort Worth.




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