THE CITY OF PORTLAND’S Central Eastside Urban Renewal Area just celebrated its 21st birthday. With very little development to show for more than two decades of renewal, the city hopes a streetcar extension is the birthday present that will bring the large-scale development that has eluded the area for so long.
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THE CITY OF PORTLAND’S Central Eastside Urban Renewal Area just celebrated its 21st birthday. With very little development to show for more than two decades of renewal, the city hopes a streetcar extension is the birthday present that will bring the large-scale development that has eluded the area for so long.
Portland is not alone in lavishing streetcars on its languishing districts. Fresno, Calif.; Tucson, Ariz.; Lancaster, Pa.; and dozens of other cities also hope that development rides on rails. In Tampa, Fla., streetcar ridership is down significantly from last year and the system is not just losing money, it’s losing more money than expected. But proponents point to a $450 million residential and retail development in a once moribund neighborhood as a spillover benefit that offsets the losses.
Many ascribe the development of Portland’s heralded Pearl District to the streetcar. The district is a 24-hour-a-day hub of activity with residences, restaurants, bars and shops. The district has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and numerous travel magazines. Condos can sell for $1 million or more.
What’s so magical about streetcars? One way to look at the magic of rail is to ask whether streetcars are the bun or the fries. It’s impossible to enjoy a burger without a bun. On the other hand, a burger is just as good without the french fries. But the fries make the meal complete. Do streetcars make the meal or do they just make the meal more complete?
The Pearl District’s success began with a few pioneering developments that took advantage of historic building tax abatements to convert warehouses into condos. The success of these developments attracted other investments and development. After these successes, an urban renewal area was created and the streetcar opened a few years after that. In Portland’s Pearl District, streetcars are a development version of a burger and fries.
It’s impossible to find a clear-cut example where streetcars are the bun. It’s impossible because streetcars are always a part of a complex development package. The packages usually include roadway improvements, tax abatements, rezoning and environmental cleanup. In these cases, it’s difficult to determine whether the streetcar system is a catalyst that boosts development potential or a vital linchpin without which development would be impossible.
Politicians and the planners they hire argue that streetcar and other rail projects provide a magical opportunity to change the zoning and uses of an area. They point to the condotopia rising out of the banks of the Willamette River in Portland’s South Waterfront urban renewal area, now served by a streetcar and an aerial tram.
But private developers have had their eyes on South Waterfront since the mid-1990s. Yet every single effort was shot down or stifled by the city’s planning process. One development didn’t follow a commissioner’s vision for an ideal street pattern. Another development would have exceeded the city’s maximum allowable building height at the time (35 feet, or about three stories). Now — as if by magic — the aerial tram and streetcar have unlocked the ability to construct buildings as tall as 32 stories.
But there is nothing magical about streetcars and trams. City commissioners could have waved their zoning wands to accommodate the private developers. If rail and tram expenditures had been invested in roadway improvements, the South Waterfront would be celebrating its 10th anniversary of redevelopment instead of wading through its third year of construction with no new roads in sight.
Streetcars and light rail cannibalize existing public transportation. That’s because they tend to run in areas already served by buses. To eliminate redundancies and, in turn, boost rail ridership, transit agencies eliminate the bus routes once the streetcar lines are open. The proposed Portland eastside extension of the streetcar would go hand-in-hand with eliminating parts of an existing bus line. Economically speaking, rail is made more attractive by making the alternatives less attractive.
Because they ride on rails, streetcars are inflexible. Rerouting or expanding streetcar service requires multi-million-dollar construction. Also, if a streetcar is stuck on the line because of a breakdown or a traffic accident, the streetcar system can be stopped or thrown into chaos.
Rail’s inflexibility has an upside, though. Property owners and their tenants can be reasonably confident that public transit will not be rerouted away from their property, homes or businesses. Bus routes do not provide such a sense of permanence. Many businesses in Portland have felt the pinch of bus rerouting associated with construction on the city’s main transit corridors.
It remains to be seen whether a streetcar line extension can breathe life into Portland’s full-grown central eastside. Large-scale rezoning to unlock development potential doesn’t need a streetcar. Investments in road improvements best serve the way the people actually travel, rather than the way we wish they would travel. The streetcar won’t do much without these other improvements. If the burger fills you up, do you really need the fries?
Eric Fruits is a senior economist at Portland consulting firm ECONorthwest and an adjunct professor at Portland State University.
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