Streetcar Desire

Yesterday when I boarded a plane for beautiful Newark (time to visit the in-laws), bleary-eyed by the early hour, the one Oregonian article I had to read right away before dozing off in my cramped coach seat was the announcement by Portland transportation planners of the streetcar's probable future lines.

Granted as an east-sider I'm biased, but it was so exciting seeing routes going down Hawthorne, Belmont, Glisan, Alberta, MLK, and several other main streets and boulevards. Ever since I moved to Portland 10 years ago from New York (I'm an Oregon native though), I've often recalled seeing streetcar tracks from a hundred years ago and felt a strong sad sense of irony that the city had a much more extensive streetcar network in the early 20th century than the early 21st. Of course it's the same in virtually any big American city, but to imagine Portland's neighborhoods with a whole network of streetcars is to me very exciting.

(Incidentally, I'd meant to post the paper's map of proposed streetcar routes into this post, but am having trouble on the in laws' computer. You can view a PDF of the map here.)

I'm also reminded of an opinion article in Oregon Business magazine several months ago called "The Pixie Dust of Streetcars". The author talked about how wasteful it is for hugely expensive streetcars, whose routes can't be changed once the tracks are in, only succeed in replacing buses that we already have. Many of us know that, as that author smartly omitted from his attack, that streetcars are about much more than transporting people from Point A to Point B. You can't look at transit in a vacuum, but rather how it relates to the holistic picture of the city and its neighborhoods. It's a development tool.

That, too, can have a downside, because it's arguably a skewed set of priorities in my mind to choose streetcar routes based on what economic pied-piper effect they might have instead of where people would want the lines and use them the most. Building a line to South Waterfront, for example, before you build one in Southeast, is to me a skewed sense of priority.

Even so, the sense I get of someday living in this city and taking streetcars most of the places I want to go, instead of my car or a smoke belching bus, is really cool.

Comments

[Mike]

I love the idea of Streetcars in Portland. Unfortunately I have not been as enamored with the reality.
I frequently walk from Burnside to the PSU along the route of the streetcar. I am almost always faster than the streetcar by foot. Somehow, this needs to be fixed. The max seems to make it through town faster than I can walk, because it gets some lights timed. More attention needs to be paid to the integration of the lines with existing lights, or the routes will simply slow traffic all over town.

[Brian Libby]

Mike, this is a great point, and one I meant to make in my original post.

The streetcar is WAY TOO SLOW with too many stops. I also think MAX has too many stops downtown. Plus, it seems silly to me that they are treated as two different entities. I'd rather see the whole thing called MAX or whatever.

[Paul]

I agree that there may be a bit too many stops, but not enough lines. I walk from either Jefferson or PSU along 10th to Couch every day and almost never encounter the Streetcar.

When I lived in Prague I used their extensive streetcar (tram) system, as well as the subway. The trams moved very quickly and didn't stop as much. Even in the center of the city where I lived. However, there are very few stoplights or even stop signs along their routes. I guess people are used to walking there, unlike in this country. I encounter countless people that drive from their point of origins to their destinations WITHIN downtown. Anything over 5 blocks and they're driving, circling the blocks looking for parking. "You're walking all the way there?" they ask. Yeah, all 8 blocks. Blows my mind.

[Bob R.]

For those interested in a streetcar on Hawthorne Blvd., please check out the advocacy web site:

http://www.hawthornestreetcar.org/

Hope to see you at the SE Meeting:

Streetcar Workshop - Southeast District
Thursday, April 3
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Cleveland High School Library
3400 SE 26th Ave.

[zilfondel]

Portland really really needs to build higher capacity transit to its southeast-area neighborhoods. Many times lately there are just too many people riding the bus - for instance, two weeks ago I was standing with a group of 30 or 40 people at one bus stop! That is almost half the capacity of the bus that came. And, we didn't all fit - about 12 people were left behind to wait for the next bus.

Hawthorne doesn't need a streetcar, it needs a friggin' subway line.