All Aboard - Modern streetcars spur development in urban cores.
By Malorie R. Medellin
People used to say that if you were the last one leaving work for the evening in downtown Little Rock you should “turn off the lights”—an old running joke for the Arkansas capital that unfortunately rang true for the dire state of its downtown.
“Fifteen years ago there were no real restaurants and hotels. At night it was dark and there was nothing to do,” says Rett Tucker, partner at Moses Tucker Real Estate in Little Rock. But the downtown had promise as a big employment center and the most culturally historic part of the city. 
Now the downtown is coming back to life—thanks to, of all things, a new streetcar line. Tucker and his firm have spent the last 10 years revitalizing downtown Little Rock through their developments and, more importantly, their staunch advocacy of a streetcar line. Following in the footsteps of cities like Portland, Ore., and Tacoma, Wash., Little Rock government officials and developers alike rallied around the streetcar in an attempt to revitalize and rebuild their urban core.
And rebuild they have. Little Rock has enjoyed millions of dollars worth of development since the streetcar project was greenlighted for construction in November 2003 and the car hit the streets nearly a year later. Moses Tucker Real Estate alone has invested roughly $150 million in a combination of mixed-use, commercial, and residential projects, all within a half block of the streetcar line.
“I see local residents ride the streetcar to go to lunch, kids use it like it’s an amusement ride, and tourists are on it,” Rett Tucker says. “There’s a combination of uses, all of which are positive.”
Such success stories are becoming more common across the nation as cities begin to incorporate streetcars into their infrastructure. Seattle’s streetcar achieved roughly one-third of its projected riding numbers for the entire year just one month after its grand opening in December 2007. Almost 100,000 passengers have already taken a ride on the 2.6-mile loop, running from the central Westlake transportation hub—the entry point for commuter trains and buses—to the northern developing corners of South Lake Union. With three cars and 11 stops, the Seattle streetcar is a permanent, reliable, and predictable mode of transportation.
“There’s a guarantee that people will go by your business,” says Lori Mason Curran, market research manager for Vulcan Real Estate in Seattle. Vulcan owns 20 percent of the land around the South Lake Union car loop—60 acres in all—and thanks to its location has just recently attracted several new tenants to its projects including Amazon.com, which will spread its headquarters across 11 buildings in a $1.5 billion, 16-year agreement.
NEXT STOP, PLEASE
Attracting development isn’t the only upside to streetcars. In addition to economic sustainability, the modern streetcar is both efficient and environmentally sound, says Ethan Melone, streetcar project manager for the Seattle Department of Transportation. Using a traction power motor similar to those in hybrid cars, the streetcar runs completely on electricity. Designed with a regenerative braking system, energy is saved with every push of the brake and put back into the electricity-grid for other cars on the line to use.
Longevity is also the key—with a 40year lifespan, Melone says the streetcar outlasts its mass transit competitor, the bus, by more than 30 years. “The idea is to get people to leave their cars where they are and hop on the streetcar,” Melone says.
Adding a streetcar also helps create pedestrian-friendly cities. Development is naturally clustered along the line, leading to more walkable neighborhoods, he says. Even the car’s design is pedestrian-friendly. Designed with low floors and wide double doors, the streetcar lines up almost exactly with the platform curb and encourages riders to walk right off the street and right on to the car.
“It’s been proven to attract more riders than buses,” Melone says, adding that peak riding hours are between 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. “These times imply that people are using the streetcar to go to lunch, to go shopping, to get to meetings. It’s just what we were hoping for.”
The mayor of Columbus, Ohio, is hoping for the same result. Although still in the early planning stages, the city hopes to have a working streetcar line by 2012.
“Cities in America that don’t deal with some other type of transportation outside of the automobile are going to be cities that aren’t going to be competitive in the future,” says Mayor Michael Coleman, admitting that Columbus has historically been a “car-focused city”. Other than a few bus routes, the downtown has no major mode of public transportation, he notes.
The streetcar would change that, Coleman contends, by connecting isolated districts and revitalizing “dead zones” of underutilized land with a 2- to 4-mile loop system. With roughly $300 million of projected development money, the city believes it will see an economic return six times its investment by 2013.
The community is optimistic: One of the city’s largest town hall gatherings ever was held in January to discuss streetcar opportunities. More than 2,000 Columbus residents attended, the majority of whom expressed a clear demand for rail in the city. “The development community is going to need to pay attention to that,” Coleman says.
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Desirable Streetcars
Follow in Seattle’s successful footsteps. Here’s how the city got its $50.5 million South Lake Union streetcar line up and running.
1. Local Improvement District Fund: Property owners along the proposed line asked city officials to assess half the cost ($25.7 million) of the streetcars and divvy it out in the form of a property tax to each individual owner, based on the projected benefit from the streetcar. Their proximity to the line and other factors, weighed in on the end decision. The $25.7 million was then allocated, along with favorable interest rates, among the property owners to be paid over the next 20 years.
2. Federal, State, and Local Funds: Just as the Federal Transit Authority donated $3 million in federal funds for the Little Rock, Ark., streetcar line, federal, state, and local agencies have worked together to provide the final $25 million needed to get Seattle’s South Lake Union line on the ground.
3. Local Sponsorships: So far, local businesses have sponsored two of the three streetcars, plus all 11 stops. For roughly $500,000 a year, businesses such as Evergreen Bank, Group Health, and Children’s Hospital “adopt” a car or stop along the line—fashioning each with their own advertisements and information. These sponsorships pay for 25 percent of the streetcars’ cost of operation.
