A desire named streetcar: Providence seeks major transit overhaul
01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 8, 2009
By Bruce Landis
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE ? State and local officials have put together a plan that would remake the metro area?s transit system, increasing and improving bus service and adding a major and expensive new element, streetcars.
The draft proposal would improve and redeploy the existing bus system, moving parts of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority?s central hub at Kennedy Plaza outward to four smaller ?hubs? encircling the downtown, and try to shift more commuters from cars to buses by doubling the number of park-and-ride commuter lots.
The authority also wants to increase bus service by 10 percent and to initiate what it calls ?rapid bus service,? measures aimed at letting buses move passengers more quickly, initially on two heavily used routes.
The proposal, written by planners at the authority, expands on many of the elements recommended by the Transit 2020 study group created in 2006 by Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, a longtime and vigorous transit proponent.
It also reflects a newly ambitious RIPTA that is trying to shift gears and look ahead after years of being battered by budget deficits and threatened service cuts.
The study is called the Providence Metropolitan Transit Enhancement Study. The final version is to be issued Thursday. Some of the elements are under way now, while the earliest that officials think a streetcar system could start operating is 2015.
The proposal is focused on the city and six communities around it, East Providence, Pawtucket, Central Fall, North Providence and parts of Cranston and Warwick. However, one part of it would also double the existing 28 RIPTA park-and-ride lots. .
Mark Therrien, RIPTA?s deputy general manager for planning, said the study is the first serious look at building a streetcar system here. At an estimated cost of $76 million, it would be by far the biggest expense in the plan.
In all, the proposal includes $127.6 million in capital costs ?? long-term expenses like construction and rolling stock ?? and $18.9 million in added annual operating expenses such as salaries and fuel.
The distinction is important. RIPTA?s capital costs are often paid by the federal government, while the authority?s operating costs come largely out of the state budget and fares. It is those operating costs ? notably for the bus drivers and, particularly, the cost of diesel fuel, coupled with an undependable revenue source, the state gasoline tax ? that have regularly left the authority?s budget in tatters.
Comparing the transit plan costs with other expensive public projects, the total capital costs are somewhat less than the winning $167.3-million bid for the new Sakonnet River Bridge now being constructed. The streetcar system would cost somewhat less than Providence?s new $90-million Career and Technical High School.
The estimated annual operating cost of all of the recommendations, $18.9 million, would add about 20 percent to RIPTA?s $96.5 million annual budget.
RIPTA has scrambled for money for years just to keep its existing buses running, and the plan acknowledges that the cost of the proposals ?is beyond any near-term funding capacity.? In fact, revenue from a critical present source of money, the gas tax, has been declining for several years. At the same time, RIPTA?s ridership has jumped to 25 million trips per year from roughly 19 million trips in the years before 2004.
?We don?t know how it?s all going to be paid for,? said Amy Pettine, RIPTA?s special projects manager.
The report says that Providence is an excellent candidate for streetcars. In the range of transit options, streetcars fit between the state?s existing two public transit systems, bus service and its growing commuter rail service.
Streetcars are electrically powered, usually through overhead wires. They operate on tracks and share the road with other vehicles. That distinguishes them from more-expensive ?light rail? systems, which have separate rights of way.
The American Public Transit Association says that new streetcar and light rail systems opened in 16 cities between 1995 and last year, along with dozens of extensions of existing systems. One recent national tally found 32 operating streetcar systems, 2 more under construction and 34 proposed or being planned.
The study proposes a ?starter? streetcar system operating within a roughly two-mile corridor. . It would operate from Rhode Island Hospital north through the Jewelry District, downtown and Kennedy Plaza. It would split there, with one branch going to the Providence railroad station and the other to Thayer Street, on the city?s East Side near Brown University.
The arguments in favor of streetcar systems start with transit ?? they carry more people than buses while polluting less than buses and stimulating more transit use ?? and go well beyond it.
The difference, they say, is that a bus line can move or disappear entirely with a single decision by a transit agency. A streetcar line, on the other hand, is built permanently at considerable expense and won?t move. That commitment encourages developers to invest. Supporters say that, given the development they can attract, streetcars are cheap.
The study estimates that the streetcar system would bring ?a huge economic benefit? including roughly 3 million square feet of development on vacant and underutilized land, most of it in the Jewelry District and downtown. It also estimates that the plan would add 4,333 jobs and 2,200 residents to the downtown area.
The plan suggests possible extensions of the streetcar lines down the major streets heading southwest of downtown, Atwells Avenue, Broadway and Broad Street, or south on Allens Avenue.
The streetcars would add only slightly to RIPTA?s ridership, however, one to two million trips per year, compared with the bus system?s total ridership of about 25 million trips per year.
How to pay for them isn?t clear and may depend in part on federal transportation legislation whose shape isn?t clear, either. Pettine, however, said federal policy seems to be leaning in directions that would favor a Providence streetcar system.
?We anticipate there?ll be money for streetcars,? she said.
The plan calls for partially decentralizing RIPTA?s ?hub-and-spoke? route system centered on Kennedy Plaza. It calls for construction of four new bus ?hubs,? on Capitol Hill, Cahir Street to the west of downtown, Thayer Street at the upper end of the College Hill bus tunnel, and at the hospital complex south of downtown. Therrien said that the Pawtucket Transit Center, where 10 bus routes terminate, already amounts to a hub.
The hubs are also intended to make the system more convenient. Most bus routes now start and end at Kennedy Plaza, forcing riders going elsewhere to transfer. Pettine said the hubs would allow routes to stop at Kennedy Plaza and then continue on to one or more of the hubs. ?It gives people a one-seat ride,? she said.
The plan also calls for ?rapid bus? service, which means improvements to move existing buses along faster. One important element, preference for buses at traffic lights, which allows drivers to prolong green lights, passed at the last session of the General Assembly.
That would be applied to the most heavily used bus corridor in the system. It begins at the Cranston city line as the 11 Broad Street bus. At Kennedy Plaza, it becomes the 99 North Main Street/Pawtucket line. Together, the study says, those lines carry more than 10,000 riders per day, more than any other.
KEY POINTSWhat the transit plan would do
Build a streetcar system: The streetcars would serve the hospital complex, Kennedy Plaza, the East Side, the West Side and the railroad station.
Speed up bus service: Institute ?rapid bus? service on the heavily used Broad Street and Pawtucket/North Main Street lines.
Increase service overall: Add 10 percent to existing service to make it more frequent, available more hours on extended routes.
Increase park-and-ride capacity: Double RIPTA?s 28 existing park-and-ride parking lots to provide more opportunities for commuters to travel partway by bus.
blandis@projo.com
