Quote:
Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat
The economic viability argument that I've heard from her is that streetcar systems have proven to attract more investment than regular bus services. The upfront capital costs are substantially higher but I believe the long term costs are less than bus on a per passenger basis. I'd have to pull citations though if you would like any of those claims substantiated. It seems to me that Colfax should be the priority. The 0 and the 0L move up and down Broadway pretty well.
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Except the Alternatives Analysis for Colfax already screened out a streetcar. So if you want that, you'd have to restart the whole planning process. Great campaign talking point (a lot of us really wanted the streetcar over BRT) but not easy in the real world.
Also, the expected (speculated) real estate investment, and subsequent tax revenue generated by it, is nearly impossible to capture for upfront capital expenditure. It is not a substitute for actually having to pay for a project. All it does is, theoretically, pay the City back over time. Given our bonding limitations, a P3 is an alternative, but again real estate is nearly impossible to monetize for upfront public stuff at any significant scale. So realistically, in a world with extremely constrained federal transit dollars, we are talking a tax initiative going to the voters. That's when we will start to see the real pocketbook cost of the dream. (I've been doing that math for a very long time. Infrastructure finance is what I do, after all.)