New Streetcar Routes in Other Cities

[Just the facts]

No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn. haha

Why would I live somewhere without a car?

I like cars, and I like to drive and park wherever I please.

Streetcars are fun, just like mopeds are fun too. The tourists will enjoy the experience.

The only reason I ask is how do you know you love your car if you never had an opportunity to live without it?

[chuck johnson]

I like cars, and I like to drive and park wherever I please.

That's kinda the problem. Without a better transit plan, you're not going to be able to drive and park wherever you please.

The streetcars should be designed around the needs of the area's residents, not its visitors. If it's only attractive to tourists, it's not going to be very successful.

[Urban Pioneer]

That's why it won't be specifically for tourists. They are a major ridership category, but not the precedent that the route is conceived around. The Memorial will be directly served, and it has a high tourist count. But the system route conception today is around mixed use.

[shane453]

For some reason Cincinnati Streetcar won a Tiger III grant for $10.9 million. The project has been surrounded by state officials, including the governor, actively trying to kill it. It relies on pretty shaky local/state funding sources. More info: http://streetsblog.net/2011/12/14/th...nsit-governor/

On the other hand, OKC has a huge, secure matching funds stockpile which will allow our project to be built in cash, and plenty of local support. I think we could submit a much more competitive grant application than Cincinnati's.

[BoulderSooner]

For some reason Cincinnati Streetcar won a Tiger III grant for $10.9 million. The project has been surrounded by state officials, including the governor, actively trying to kill it. It relies on pretty shaky local/state funding sources. More info: http://streetsblog.net/2011/12/14/th...nsit-governor/

On the other hand, OKC has a huge, secure matching funds stockpile which will allow our project to be built in cash, and plenty of local support. I think we could submit a much more competitive grant application than Cincinnati's.

we are applying for a small starts grant ... 80 mil so then in the future we might apply for or grants with the street car money ..

we did apply for a TIGER III grant for the hub

[Urban Pioneer]

CINCINNATI RECEIVES TIGER 3 FUNDING FROM THE FTA

Applicant/Sponsor: City of Cincinnati

Total project cost: $156,290,000

Grant Funding: $10,920,000

This project will design and construct the Riverfront Loop, supplementing the Downtown Circulator route of the Cincinnati Streetcar. The extension will directly connect the Downtown circulator route already in design with the Cincinnati riverfront to the south.

Project Highlights

»»Restores connection to the Riverfront loop

»»Connects downtown with the $600 million Banks Mixed-Use development and 45-acre Central Riverfront Park

»»Supports the Downtown project linking employment centers with disadvantaged neighborhood

This modern streetcar system has the potential to revitalize Cincinnati’s urban core—a city served by six Fortune 500 companies, academic, medical and research institutions, with a widely dispersed employment base of over 70,000 people. By providing a public transit alternative, the city will use the investment to re-orient its development patterns into a more walkable, livable, and affordable community with a mix of land uses, housing units, and income groups. Much of the surrounding land use is underutilized vacant lots used as parking, which the city is working to redevelop using Tax Increment Finance Districts.

[Just the facts]

Are these TIGER III grants operated under the same philsophy as people who oppose payments to Continental Resources - as in - OKC is already building a streetcar so why should the federal government funded it.

[Just the facts]

After finding out how much it cost to fix the turnstiles on the Skyway here in Jacksonville, JTA decided to make riding the system free. The repairs and maintenance cost more than the revenue generated. Starting on Feb 1 all rides will be free (used to be 50 cents per ride). After 90 days they are going to review the system and if ridership increases they are going to keep it free.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/JTA-to-...76/-/a7bwga/-/

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - For months, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority has said it's working hard to fix broken gates and other malfunctioning equipment at Skyway terminals.

But as Channel 4 investigators have recently learned, rather than fixing the problems that would force riders to pay up, JTA will offer free rides.

...

At the end of this month, the turnstiles and gates will no longer be needed. That's when the Skyway will be going fare free for 90 days as a test to see how many people will ride it for free. It's also a result of Channel 4 showing people who just squeezed by the turnstiles, avoiding fares all together.

...

There is also concern that making the Skyway free will lead to transients using it as a way to get out of the weather. JTA says it is making plans for that.

"You will see an increase in security on the Skyway as we move into these 90 days," Eller said.

[ljbab728]

Federal officials have given the green light for the Milwaukee Streetcar project to move forward, a city official said Monday...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwauk...138346289.html

That article mentions $1 fares. Has there been any mention of how that might compare to potential fares for our system? I'm sure they will also have some kind of pass system but a $1 fare seems a little high to me.

[Urban Pioneer]

There has been discussion that the OKC streetcar may very well be free. We have not reached there yet however.

[Skyline]

Tucson broke ground on their 3.9 mile streetcar project costing $196 million, $78 million of that is due to Federal Funding and grants.
http://www.tucsonstreetcar.com/index.htm

http://fastlane.dot.gov/2012/04/tucson-streetcar.html
Tucson breaks ground on Sun Link streetcar
because transportation is good business

[kevinpate]

...sure they will also have some kind of pass system but a $1 fare seems a little high to me.

cheaper than the DT spokies though.
8^)

[Just the facts]

Tucson should have gotten rid of all their one-way streets downtown while they were at it.

[NoOkie]

Kansas City is launching a campaign for a modern streetcar downtown. https://www.facebook.com/streetcarneighbors

I was just there and let me tell you, that movement is not only passionate, they are really, really leveraging the tech and entrepreneur community. It looks awesome!

I'm curious to see if it goes through. They had a big light rail initiative when I lived there, but it died on the ballot.

[Spartan]

Kansas City is launching a campaign for a modern streetcar downtown. https://www.facebook.com/streetcarneighbors

I was just there and let me tell you, that movement is not only passionate, they are really, really leveraging the tech and entrepreneur community. It looks awesome!

I think this might be their break-through, but I'm also curious why their route is about double the per-mile expense as ours. KC has a very dubious and depressing history of streetcar attempts in the last 20 years. I think there is an actual organized opposition to streetcars in KC, which we're pretty lucky to not have I think..

[lasomeday]

After finding out how much it cost to fix the turnstiles on the Skyway here in Jacksonville, JTA decided to make riding the system free. The repairs and maintenance cost more than the revenue generated. Starting on Feb 1 all rides will be free (used to be 50 cents per ride). After 90 days they are going to review the system and if ridership increases they are going to keep it free.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/JTA-to-...76/-/a7bwga/-/

Its free in Portland for most of the downtown area!

[Snowman]

..., but I'm also curious why their route is about double the per-mile expense as ours. ...

The line will travel 2.2 miles from one end to the other and is estimated to cost $101 million, there renderings show double tracks making it about 4.4 miles the way we calculate ours, so it is closer to a 15% premium to ours. There seems like a lot of other ways the remaining difference could be used up quickly: part of that route is currently one way only so will need rework the street's traffic signals and possibly one/two parallel to it, the cost for land/building of a maintenance building may be higher, they may have some known conflicts underground that need dealt with, labor costs may be slightly higher there and/or they may want higher frequency necessitating more streetcars.

[Urban Pioneer]

Cincinnati debuts their shelter design. Something that we will be thinking about seriously, very shortly.

http://cincinnati-oh.gov/noncms/proj...ws_shelter.cfm

[Spartan]

Cincinnati debuts their shelter design. Something that we will be thinking about seriously, very shortly.

http://cincinnati-oh.gov/noncms/proj...ws_shelter.cfm

I don't like that. I think there will be an immediate incorrect perception that public transit is for the homeless, and traditional transit shelters do attract those elements. We may especially want to consider some innovative ways to mask the traditional shelter appearance.

I think Toronto offers good examples of ways to blend streetcar shelters into the surrounding urban environment:


Just to be fair (and play devil's advocate against myself), these shelters will have to cover people from all kinds of potentially brutal weather conditions. We may way wind cover, shade, rain cover, etc. Shade could possibly be provided instead with trees over the shelters.

[Urban Pioneer]

I agree about the trees. The best stop design that I have seen thus far that is glass is the DC Metro Bus Shelters. I did a quick search but didn't find a pic of what I had actually seen while up there this year. But the take away is that it is mostly translucent and has glass sides. The realty is, we really need to take into account Oklahoma's severed weather as best we can- IE the wind, horizontal rain as well as the heat.

Also, this stop needs to include an advertising mechanism, route maps, and on on-time displays. I'd say a good music system ought to be considered as well.

[Spartan]

The advertising mechanism can easily be separated. JC Deceaux usually does Europe's tram advertising, and they typically have a detached kiosk model that you see everywhere.

Like this:


I'm guessing this is in the UK based on the spelling of colours and traffic configuration.

[Tier2City]

Looks like Dublin.

[Just the facts]

Just to be fair (and play devil's advocate against myself), these shelters will have to cover people from all kinds of potentially brutal weather conditions. We may way wind cover, shade, rain cover, etc. Shade could possibly be provided instead with trees over the shelters.

They could make the shelters round with an overhead track and an inground track that holds 2 or 3 sliding glass walls. That way people waiting for a streetcar can just move the glass around to block the wind and rain but still have visability to see when the streetcar is coming.

[Spartan]

Here are two really cool pieces of inspiration I came across in Cleveland this last week:

Bus shelters in the Gordon Square Arts District area - essentially designed as a single piece of metal that folds in different places to create form and function for waiting passengers:


This eyepopping-red trellis actually reminded me of this thread. At the least, Red Prime would kill to have this be a streetcar stop outside their restaurant.

[Just the facts]

While in Atlanta 2 weeks ago local radio was buzzing with their new plan to solve their traffic problems. Then today I see an ad for it here in the OKCTalk banner. It was very interesting to hear callers on the radio station I listen to. It is a conservative talk radio station which aires Rush, Hannity, Boortz so I can only assume the majority of callers are of like mind. Nearly all of them opposed more freeways and freeway improvement and instead favored commuter rail, streetcars, and expanding MARTA. Several of the callers cited serious concerns that Atlanta was losing companies to places like Charlotte and Dallas which had rail networks they gave people the option of avoiding traffic. One caller who had lived in Atlanta his whole life was dumbfounded that after 40 years of building more freeways than any other city in the world only to see traffic become worse and worse, that the state would propose more freeways as the solution.

From a personal perspective and this is 100% true. 2 weeks ago I left the downtown ATL office and 38 minutes after leaving I was only 4 blocks from where I started. My car doors lock automatically when I hit 13 mph. I had been on the road 43 minutes when they locked. I had to stop and get gas at the BP station at North Ave and Spring street so I entered from North Ave. I got gas and even had to go inside to get my recipet (waiting in line in there as well). I pulled away from the pump and exited the station on to Spring street. The truck that was a couple of cars in front of me on North Ave BEFORE I stopped to get gas, was now directly behind me AFTER I stopped to get gas.