Metro Mayor's Smitten. Fall In Love With Streetcar Systems
Streetcar Capitals: Paris, Monaco, Vienna, Munich, Zurich ,Nice, Bordeaux, "and drumroll please.... coming soon, Salt Lake City."
UTA, mayors take European tour
Streetcar pitch » Agency foots bill to sell cities on alternative to light rail.
The streetcars in Bordeaux, France, could provide a model for cities in Utah to connect neighborhoods and commercial centers without the expense of a light-rail system. UTA officials and three mayors toured six European cities last month to view modern streetcar systems. (Courtesy of Kerry Doane / Utah Transit Authority)
By Brandon Loomis
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Utah Transit Authority spent at least $48,000 last month taking nine managers and board members, a business booster and three mayors on a weeklong tour of six European streetcar systems.
The itinerary: Vienna, Munich, Zurich, Nice and Bordeaux, with incidental stops in Monaco and Paris. The goal: peruse state-of-the-art trains unlike any used in North America and consider them as possible connectors that can share traffic lanes with cars to link with Utah's expanding light-rail system. The travel tab: An estimated $3,700 a head -- all from UTA tax dollars.
Critics say that, while neighborhood electric streetcars may be a vital link in the future, right now Utah suffers a budget crunch.
"Everybody's cutting
UTA Riviera streetcars back, economizing and slimming down, and these guys are off to Europe?" said Linda Hilton, an advocate for the poor at Salt Lake City's Crossroads Urban Center. "If [riders] knew their fare increases were being used to pay for UTA officials, who already make large sums of money, to go to Europe, they would be upset."
Linda Parsons, director of the advocacy group Utah Jobs with Justice, agrees that now is not the time to be "flitting around"
"We need mass transit so desperately," she said, "and they seem to foolishly spend [money] at every whim."
But Sen. Curt Bramble, a former UTA board member who admits a "love-hate" relationship with the agency, called the trip a good use of tax dollars, although he said the size of the delegation could be questioned.
"If we're going to spend tens of millions of dollars on a transit project I think that going out in the field and seeing firsthand the projects -- that's money well-spent," said the Provo Republican.
Streetcars are cheaper than light rail, at perhaps $15 million to $20 million a mile instead of $40 million, said UTA General Manager John Inglish, who traveled with the group. Streetcars pull up to curbs and don't need boarding platforms.
Seeing and experiencing the possibilities helped show the mayors of Salt Lake County, Bountiful and Ogden that the less-expensive option might be the best for their jurisdictions, Inglish said. Portland, Ore., has a successful streetcar system, but it uses older technology, he said.
"You don't have vision if you don't see it happening somewhere," Inglish said. "They were blown away."
Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said the tour helped him see the importance of zoning areas to encourage higher-density developments around the rails, and that streetcars are low-impact vehicles that can coexist with pedestrians and even parks.
Corroon and the others rushed from one city to the next every day, occasionally stopping for a meal courtesy of local transit officials and suppliers. In Zurich, UTA's itinerary had them enjoying a "fondue tram," eating melted delights while riding a train through town.
Although a streetcar must compete with cars in traffic, it moves more people faster than buses can. A streetcar can stretch to carry 500 people if necessary, using just one operator, Inglish said.
Bordeaux, France, demonstrated a new technology that uses a third rail that is electrified only as the car passes over it, eliminating the risk of pedestrian electrocutions. Other trains on the tour packed batteries, allowing cities to dispense with overhead wires in places, such as city-center plazas. Those technologies proved persuasive to Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey, who said he doesn't want overhead wires in his city.
Manufacturers and European transit officials showed the delegation that the battery packs can power through snow, Godfrey said. "We got an assurance that the technology exists to do what we wanted to do in Ogden."
Bountiful Mayor Joe Johnson said he was so smitten that he not only dropped his opposition to a streetcar line from Salt Lake City but now prefers it to TRAX. He had worried about running the trains in traffic, but found that they're more accessible in neighborhoods, move faster than he had imagined (around 40 mph) and don't require light rail's broad path.
The delegates shuttled to seven cities in seven days. Inglish doubts any of them got more than six hours of sleep a night.
"This wasn't a vacation," Johnson said.
UTA invited Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, but he declined. He said he didn't need to be sold on streetcars, although he believes the trip was valuable for those who took it.
About the trip
Who went » Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon; Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey; Bountiful Mayor Joe Johnson; Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce President Lane Beattie; UTA General Manager John Inglish; Assistant General Manager Mike Allegra; Board Chairman Larry Ellertson; board member Justin Allen; General Counsel Bruce Jones; Chief Communications Officer Andrea Packer; streetcar project manager Kerry Doane; and regional UTA directors Art Bowen and Lorin Simpson.
Where they went » Vienna, Austria; Munich, Germany; Zurich, Switzerland; Nice, France; Bordeaux, France; Monaco; and Paris.
What it cost » An estimated $3,724.50 per person.
What they saw » Trains that run on streets, like those that crisscrossed Salt Lake City in the early 20th century but faster, with modern electrical systems, batteries and in-ground electrified rails. The vehicles generally feed from neighborhoods into subway lines, the way UTA expects to connect Utahns to TRAX and FrontRunner.
How it translates » Officials say the trip helped them see how a streetcar web in Utah could coexist with traffic, carry more people than buses and avoid, in places, using overhead power lines.
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