Evaluating the Streetcar (Portland, Beaverton, Astoria: home, neighborhood, costs)

[DarkWolf]

Its sad that Portland is used as a model when both Toronto and Philadelphia have heavily used and preserved systems that are expanded.. Philadelphia gets used by at least 120,000 a day , and Toronto gets about 285,000 daily riders....both systems have enhancements and expansions in the works so with Philly the old network will come back so Route 6 , 23 , 56 , 60 , Waterfront , and South/Western Urban Trolley Network and 104 for Suburban Trolley... Toronto is building 7 New Streetcar/LRT lines....and upgrading the current system. Both Systems are considered Mass Transit and are not Toy's like Portland which is sad... Apparently Portland is used as a model due to the fact that it used to be all Auto-oriented and they turned it around into a Transit Paradise at least on the surface. I'm learning once you peel back the onion so to speak , Portland is a cautionary tale of what to do and what not to do.

Suburban Trolley's... , 8,000 daily Riders , the 104 would




SEPTA, Philadelphia: Car 105 on Line 101 outbound from Drexel Hill Junction at Turner Avenue by Mega Anorak, on Flickr


SEPTA, Philadelphia: Car 115 on Line 102 outbound on Springfield Road at Clifton-Aldan Station by Mega Anorak, on Flickr


SEPTA, Philadelphia: Car 120 on W State Street, Media at South Avenue by Mega Anorak, on Flickr



Urban Network , 112,000 daily Riders - 6 , 23 , 56 , 60 and Waterfront will restore the North-South Trolley routes completing the network. I would expect Trolley Ridership once those lines are restored would be about 470,000 judging by the TOD and bus ridership along those routes




SEPTA, Philadelphia: Car 2335 southbound on Frankford Avenue at Wildey Street in less than ideal conditions by Mega Anorak, on Flickr


SEPTA Route 34 trolley by Studio 34: Yoga | Healing | Arts, on Flickr

[Minervah]

Couldn't agree more about Toronto. I have been there and was really impressed with this system. Of course it is a much larger city but the way it is covered by its streetcar system is really efficient a model of foresight in planning.

I have mixed feelings about the SW streetcar. On the one hand it does do a good job in getting people from one end of the downtown area to another and into the NW part of town but so did the buses they replaced. The new buses on the remaing routes are good loaders. People don't trip all over one another getting in and out when the bus is crowded as they do the streetcars which I think are not well designed. I think the bus routes the streetcars curtailed or replaced were just as good and ran more frequently.

[Nell Plotts]

Originally Posted by turquoise1

Nell, this is right - if you have a kid in a stroller and it's raining, the streetcar is a godsend. At least you can get to Finnegan's, Child's Play, Playdate PDX and the kids' room at the Art Museum without getting too soaked.

I think it is one piece in a foot based transportation system.

Likely I am the only one on the forum who actually used the old Portland Streetcar system. I loved it, busses will never replace what it accomplished.

[turquoise1]

Nell, why did they remove the original streetcar? To where did it travel? Sadly, this seems par for the course in a lot of Western cities.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by turquoise1

Nell, why did they remove the original streetcar? To where did it travel? Sadly, this seems par for the course in a lot of Western cities.

The streetcars throughout America were once all private owned and in the summary of their rich history, basically new car companies began buying up lines and shutting them down to encourage people to buy cars instead. Our streetcar culture died when our auto industry took off. Obviously there is a lot more to it then just that, but that is the gist of it.


As for Portland, I like the streetcar and would love to see it expand throughout Portland. A line up Sandy would be a great idea. It is hard to say if the Pearl would of taken off without the streetcar, simply because for decades Burnside was seen as a barrier that stopped development on the north side of the road. And while it is faster to walk a few blocks then it is to take the streetcar, it is faster to take the streetcar from the Northwest to PSU then it is to walk. I do think they could afford to get rid of a few stops, but overall I think it is a good system and over the next decade we will see if expanding to the east has had any success.

[Nell Plotts]

Urbanlife78 is correct.

Portland Trolley Chronology I would take the 23rd Ave. Line.

[Squidlo]

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

Apparently Portland is used as a model due to the fact that it used to be all Auto-oriented and they turned it around into a Transit Paradise at least on the surface. I'm learning once you peel back the onion so to speak , Portland is a cautionary tale of what to do and what not to do.

I think developers, planners and contractors love the way Portland did it because of all the fat checks the public handed them without much protest.

I love the old preserved infrastructure based street cars make sense to me to maintain it.

Starting over and building it from scratch is insane. We could have a hybrid bus fleet that makes much more sense.

But hey, who am I kidding. Most folks in the public sector are fiscally unconscious. If you base your next pork project on a 10 yr projection of tax revenue (money you don't have yet) you don't really care about cost in the first place.

[Deezus]

Every morning I go to work from SE Portland to the Lloyd Center--either by MAX train or several different east-west bus routes. And every morning the MAX trains and buses are packed to the point where it's always standing room only--and then when I get off in the morning--and see the east side streetcar at the same time--there's maybe like five people on it. Same thing in the afternoon commute--I don't think I've ever seen more than a handful of people riding that thing at the same time. And that's an issue. If the bus lines and MAX route is over capacity and we just spent millions on a new street car thats fairly empty--that's a big problem with planning.

One of the biggest problem with the streetcars are the routes they take. The downtown streetcar zigs and zags through downtown Portland on the way to NW Portland--however you can often walk across downtown and reach your destination faster than the street car unless you're going all the way to the end of the line in NW Portland. The east side streetcar covers a route that already had a decent bus route that covered more area into an area of NE Portland up MLK Ave that could actually use more frequent transit yet wasn't served by the street car. You can take a bus straight out of downtown to somewhere in inner SE Portland that's quicker and more direct than the street car.

Which sort of leads to the question--why are street cars so much better than simply buses? They are even less useful if you have a car breakdown or stall on the street car tracks--at least buses can go around. Honestly, I'm under the impression that for the most part they are sort of a tourism/marketing item--something to show off in brochures and to supposedly encourage future development. A streetcar could be useful if it had more direct and faster routes and actually had limited access routes and right of way in areas. Just as the MAX works well when it's got it's own separate tracks going east towards the airport--it's fast.

When I took the trams in Amsterdam or Vienna they were highly useful as loop around the central core--but they made use of old European urban planning. With a grid pattern in Portland that wouldn't really work. It'd be better just to ramp up our bus service on some of the high volume routes--maybe look at Bus Rapid Transit--at least get our bus service to level of fricking Eugene.

Oh and another thing--the honor system for street car or light rail tickets doesn't work. I rarely see anyone checking tickets on the MAX still-unless it's a big event at the Rose Garden where they cordon off the exit from the train--and I don't think I've ever in my entire life seen anyone checking tickets on the street car. And people know this, and are still willing to risk it. Trimet has probably lost a huge amount over the years from free ridership.

[urbanlife78]

The eastside streetcar line is too soon to judge because the bridge isnt even finished yet, nor has there been enough development to start up that is focused around the streetcar. I do think it is a step in the right direction and it will all depend on what projects along it get a green light.

[ChehalemValley]

Here's an introductory page on Portland's historic Streetcars. Includes maps, showing how they'd take you most anywhere in town.

The NW 23rd line is more than a bit useless - yeah, all those PSU students living on Nob Hill have found it a godsend. But you have to start somewhere, may as well be as a plaything for the wealthy. The original lines were very modest in scope at first as well. But they were also much easier to deploy, owing to simplicity of construction and lack of standards in building. A primary hangup was waiting for delivery of the cars themselves. If a concerted effort was being made to replace or augment buslines with streetcars with a major street being serviced every year or two, we'd be making progress. But it's just too expensive to roll out on that scale anymore.

I've always favored trolleybuses, or "trolley coaches" as they used to be called here - electric buses utilizing overhead power lines. Forget about the improved performance gained with utilizing rails, it's just too expensive to implement. Trolley coaches and expanded service, but Portland has curtailed service on existing fuel powered bus lines recently so this will remain a pipe dream.