Why Cities Decline, Case Study No. 1,223 (Idiotic Streetcar Edition)
Nick Gillespie | October 16, 2007, 7:25am
Officials in Cincinnati, a city that's been in decline for decades (maybe a century), have finally hit on a way to pull re-enthrone the Queen City (a.k.a. Porkopolis) as urban royalty: Build a $100 million, 4-mile streetcar route with the money they don't have.
Yeah, that's the ticket. To rub salt in the wounds of taxpayers, officials are claiming that the project will add $2 billion to the city's economy and revitalize a long-unrevitalizable section of town.
Cincinnati today will unveil plans on how to pay for a four-mile, $100 million downtown streetcar line that advocates believe will contribute $2 billion to the city's economy and transform [the] Over-the-Rhine [section of town].
The plan's cheerleaders include politicians, transit activists and urban developers. So far, it seems to have no enemies, although that could change when the city explains where it will get the money to fund the plan.
More here. The project is a fantastic example of how city officials delude themselves into thinking that whipped cream and sprinkles--or a goddamn transit technology that is one of the most frustrating, underperfroming rides imaginable--can save cities. What is it about trains? Or light rail? Or streetcars? Is there a Freudian analysis that's relevant here?
Why won't cities such as Cincinnati do far more basic things to lure people back into their craptacular clutches? The list might include: Generally reducing taxes and regulation so that it's relatively cheap to live and easy to do business in an area; creating a safe climate with regards to crime; reforming a public school system so people who don't have kids (a majority pretty much everywhere) don't have to worry about school issues and people with kids have some decent measure of choice; not spending billions of dollars on the owners of jerk-off sports teams.
Somehow I don't think building a 4-mile streetcar from point Y to point Z is going to help.
Back in 2001, as Mr. Mxyzptlk at Suck, I wrote about Cincinnati's woes as a way of talking about the plight facing many other mid-sized (for now) cities.
Cincinnati's leaders (if you can call them that) are predictably holding up Portland, Oregon as a model. Here's Randal O'Toole in reason on why that is totally off-target. And here's Dan McGraw on why sports welfare is destructive of just about everything it touches, except the wallets of fatcats.
O'Toole (named after his father, perhaps [scroll down]), wrote a good piece for Cato cleverly titled "A Desire Named Streetcar."
R | October 17, 2007, 9:15pm | #
I just don't get it. Why do you all keep complaining about rising property taxes when talking about the Cincy line?? THIS WILL NOT BE FUNDED BY TAX INCREASES. There's plenty of private money going into this, some state money (about $10m), and revenue from the sale of an air field in Blue Ash.
Streetcars have an almost proven track record of revitalizing the area within two blocks of their lines. Portland (duh), little rock, kenosha WI, Tampa, etc etc have all had huge amounts of development right next to their lines. Almost every city that builds a line has the same results. Yes, it didnt work so well in Detroit but thats not a streetcar. Ditto to the Louisville trolley bus system, a glorified bus isnt a substitute for rail. People just refuse to ride buses, its a fact. They're thought of as "loser cruisers" but a streetcar doesnt have the same connotations.
If you guys could point to streetcar systems that have flopped, then you're arguments would be credible. Right now you're pointing to instances of Detroits failed people mover and Louisville's trolley buses, NEITHER of which are streetcars. And the whole "Hartford is shit so for some reason streetcars are dumb" is an argument totally beyond reason. You're just using shitty cities that have nothing to do with streetcars to bash the idea.
Yes, cinci could use the money to fight crime, but god forbid cincinnati tries a multi-faceted approach to revitalize its urban core. You dont need to completely eliminate crime before you can move onto the next project, nor do you need to bring the schools up to high standards before you think of anything else. That system would halt progress for decades. The city needs to tackle crime to revitalize itself, but its also needs to do more than that. Cincinnati needs a MULTIFACETED approach to revitalization, and this is just one way to do it. Maybe with the new property taxes along this route from the new development, they could improve schools and the police force? hmm? There's a strange idea, using the benefits of this system to help fund the other projects? (Note, i said the property taxes from new developments would be used, not the fares and revenue from the system itself. ALL transit is losing money, especially highways, but the benefits of this will almost surely outweigh the bad)
Its not being funded by higher taxes, so why all the bitching? This isnt the same system that was proposed in '02 that would have been funded by a tax increase.
