Light rail by another name? - San Antonio Express-News

Light rail by another name? - San Antonio Express-News


To many public transit advocates, streetcars and light rail couldn't be more different. Streetcars are slower, light-rail vehicles go longer distances and their costs can vary widely.

But to rail opponents, both run on tracks and that makes them exactly the same.

That argument now is being used to challenge construction of two downtown streetcar lines using tax dollars that opponents contend VIA Metropolitan Transit previously promised voters would never go toward light rail.

Defining the difference might make or break VIA's plan.

“It is the same technology. It's a fixed guideway, fixed rail,” said Jeff Judson, an Olmos Park city councilman, who played a key role in the defeat of a 2000 light-rail initiative and now has launched a similar fight against streetcars. “It's electric-powered cars. If you look at the definitions in all the different federal sources, it is light rail.”

Industry experts indicate the reality is more complex.

“It depends on the use of the car,” said Martin Schroeder, chief engineer for the American Public Transportation Association.

Generally, streetcars and light rail accomplish two distinct goals. Light rail connects regional centers that are farther apart, like city centers to the suburbs or to an airport. Streetcars typically operate in downtowns or urban cores and ferry passengers for short trips.

Streetcars also are associated with economic development and their perceived ability to revive urban areas.

“When I'm downtown, I take the streetcar,” said Schroeder, who's based in Washington. “When I go home, I take the light rail.”

Last fall, VIA Metropolitan Transit, Bexar County and the city voted to jointly pay for the $190 million streetcar system, which was part of a larger, $239 million transportation package that includes two Park & Ride stations, and the development of two multimodal transit hubs on the west and east sides of downtown.

One streetcar line would run from the Pearl along Broadway, then to the Alamodome. The other would start near Cattlemen's Square, then go south an Alamo Street to Southtown. Each would be about 2.5 miles long. If built, they could be in operation by 2015 or 2016.

Judson, along with tea party President George Rodriguez and a group of state and local elected officials, say Bexar County commissioners broke a contract with the voters by using $92 million in advanced transportation district funds (ATD) to pay for the county's portion.

ATD was a sales tax increase that voters approved in 2004. But because the failed light-rail election still was so fresh, VIA produced campaign literature pledging not to spend ATD funds on light rail or toll roads. The VIA board approved a resolution pledging the same.

The anti-rail coalition, led by Judson, has threatened legal action if the ATD funds are spent on the streetcar project.

“They only call it something different now that it's convenient to do so,” Judson said.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, one of streetcar's most unabashed cheerleaders, makes no bones that VIA's long-term plans include light rail, perhaps one to International Airport. But streetcars are the precursor, not the identical twin.

“I think it's the first phase that comes to a light rail,” Wolff said. “But it's not a light rail.”

The difference?

Experts say a streetcar is not just defined by technology or vehicle specifications but intended use and also its potential effect on the environment around it.

The modern streetcar movement started in 2001, when Portland opened its landmark system; over the next 11 years, dozens of other cities followed. Streetcars usually operate in densely developed areas, often downtowns, and usually are tied to economic development and revitalization, said Linda Cherrington, with the Texas Transportation Institute.

Light-rail vehicles usually stop at larger stations. Streetcars pick up and drop off passengers more frequently at places similar to bus stops.

“People like them because it brings a certain vibrance to the downtown, and people just find it easy to hop around the streetcar and get around,” Schroeder said. “It really does a lot for the downtown center.”

Cherrington said a streetcar is “a type of light rail, but the application is in a very small, specific area.”

They are also cheaper. A streetcar can cost $25 to $40 million per mile to build. The price tag to build a light-rail line, which usually is longer than a streetcar line, is $50 to $90 million per mile.

But their technical definitions aren't always clear cut.

The Federal Highway Administration's definition, cited in a March 1 letter sent to Wolff by the elected officials opposing the use of ATD funds for streetcar, calls light rail a “streetcar-type vehicle.” But the definition used by the Federal Transit Administration does not.

Cities often develop light-rail systems first, and then pursue streetcars, though the systems eventually can connect.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit already operates an extensive light-rail system and provides some funding to a privately run streetcar line called the McKinney Avenue Trolley or M-Line.

Now the city is pursuing construction of a streetcar line that will connect downtown to the city's Oak Cliff neighborhood, across the Trinity River. Plans for another streetcar circulator are under discussion, DART spokesman Morgan Lyons said.

“What streetcar would do for us, they go a few places that the light rail doesn't go,” Lyons said. “They are a long-term investment,” because the tracks are embedded in the roads.

Seattle opened its first streetcar line in late 2007, two years before the region's first light-rail system launched.

“We would say they are different,” said Ethan Melone, rail transit manager for the Seattle Department of Transportation. Seattle's streetcar is 66 feet long and eight feet wide. The light-rail vehicles are about 90 feet long and a foot wider.

Light-rail vehicles are usually coupled together, unlike streetcars, and often require exclusive rights of way and make longer trips.

“All of that means is a streetcar can fit into an existing street or neighborhood without making major changes to the street,” Melone said.

In San Antonio, VIA plans to route at least one streetcar line and a soon-to-be-launched bus rapid transit line through the same downtown transit centers.

As Wolff said, light rail is a future possibility. But, said VIA CEO and President Keith Parker, a streetcar is the right mode for the city now.

“Streetcar is a very good technology for where we are in San Antonio, in that the cost and even the length of time that's associated with building a light-rail line is beyond our financial means at this point,” Parker said.

Gray areas

But the definitions keep evolving, as technology blurs the divide between the two modes, said Schroeder, with APTA.

Streetcar and light-rail vehicles can look the same or even be the same. According to a study by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the light-rail system in Tacoma, Wash., uses the same cars as the Portland and Seattle streetcar networks.

Both streetcar and light rail usually are connected to overhead wires that power the vehicles. Increasingly, wireless technology is available for both modes, Schroeder said. VIA is considering wireless vehicles, Parker said.

Even the terms are changing. Austin is debating construction of what transportation officials there call an urban rail line. Like a streetcar, it would operate in downtown and around the University of Texas at Austin, if it's built. But the proposed network also would connect to the city's international airport and to a city-owned, mixed-use development outside the central core.

Sometimes, the differences simply come down to how each community views the various transit modes, and how those were viewed in the past, Cherrington said.

Austin voters defeated a light-rail initiative in 2000. But they approved a commuter-rail line four years later, and that now travels between Leander and downtown.

To Parker, this kind of debate is normal in any city considering a rail option.

And he agreed on at least one way streetcar and light rail are similar — they can attract a type of rider that regular bus service can't.

Streetcar “will give us an opportunity to see if this community is ready for a true multimodal investment in a way that I think is meaningful,” Parker said.

vdavila@express-news.net