It hurts home values in the "good" neighborhoods

[JeffreyS]

Talking up the MJ rail plan at work. I am getting the it brings the "bad" people out to the burbs and hurts home values. That is not what I have heard about Atlanta. I would like some more examples to show and have challenged my coworker to prove his side. Of course he had no examples.

[thelakelander]

I'm sure Ock or Nawdry can provide numerous examples of rail raising property values.  As far as it bringing "bad" people out to the burbs....buses and cars already do that.  I'm sure that someone planning to break into your house won't be relying on a train to get him and the stolen goods back to where they came from.  Tell your co-workers perhaps we can stop this threat from happening, by closing off all the roads into the suburban neighborhoods instead?

The Economic benefits of Public Transit:

In Dallas, residential properties near light rail stations on average increased in value 39% and office buildings by 53%, compared to similar properties not near rail. The increase in taxable value of properties located near Dallas’ DART light rail stations was 25% higher than elsewhere in the metro area.

http://www.detroittransit.org/cms.php?pageid=26

A Streetcar Named Aspire:
Lines Aim to Revive Cities

By Thaddeus Herrick
From The Wall Street Journal Online

As a transportation system, this city's $63 million streetcar line is a dud.

Since the project opened in 2002, its financial losses have exceeded expectations. Last year ridership declined 10% to its lowest level yet. And the vintage system spans only 2.4 miles between the edge of downtown and a historic district called Ybor City.

"It goes from no place to nowhere," says Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair, an opponent of the project.

But proponents say Tampa's Teco Line Streetcar System has delivered on another front: helping to spur development. Some $450 million in residential and retail space is complete along the route, most of it in the Channel District, a once-languishing maritime neighborhood. With another $450 million in development underway and $1.1 billion in the planning stages, local officials expect the district to be home to as many as 10,000 residents within the next decade.

Like stadiums, convention centers and aquariums, streetcars have emerged as a popular tool in the effort to revitalize downtowns in the U.S. About a dozen cities, from Madison, Wis., to Miami, are planning lines. But while research shows that big-ticket projects such as ballparks largely fail to spawn economic development, evidence is mounting that streetcars are indeed a magnet.

Streetcar systems are slower, less expensive and smaller than light rail, with cars that carry a maximum of 125 people and the average line 2-3 miles long. The cars are powered by electricity and run on tracks, which developers tend to favor because they suggest a sense of permanence, unlike bus routes, which can be changed overnight.

In Kenosha, Wis., city officials say a two-mile line helped generate 400 new residential units and the redevelopment of a 69-acre industrial site into a waterfront park. The streetcar line in Little Rock, Ark., has sparked revitalization of the city's River Market and warehouse district. In Seattle, a new $52 million streetcar line is scheduled to open in December that will shuttle riders between downtown and South Lake Union, a formerly industrial area that is being redeveloped by Microsoft Corp. billionaire Paul Allen.

And in Portland, Ore., the poster child for such development, officials say the streetcar system has helped bring $2.7 billion in investment within two blocks of its 3.6 mile line, much of it in the 24-hour hub known as the Pearl District. "It's one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in the city," says Richard Brandman, deputy planning director for Metro, the Portland area's regional government.

Still, streetcars face considerable odds because they vie for the same money as transportation projects designed to serve the suburbs. This has been particularly true at the federal level, where funding has long depended on how quickly projects can move people from one point to another. Streetcars, which average under ten miles per hour, are at a distinct disadvantage. By contrast, light rail moves at 20 to 60 miles per hour.

Congress sought to change the odds in 2005 with the creation of Small Starts, a Federal Transit Administration program designed to fund small-scale transportation systems, including streetcars. But streetcar proponents have been largely reluctant to pursue funding under the program, saying the FTA still favors high-speed transit such as buses.

Paul Griffo, a spokesman for the FTA, says that both mobility and development factor into the funding of transportation projects. But so far Small Starts has recommended four projects, all of them bus rapid transit, an emerging transportation alternative in which a bus operates in a designated lane much like subway or light rail with stops about every half mile.

In the meantime, cities have relied on a patchwork of public and private money to help fund their streetcar systems, hoping to tap into a demographic shift in which young professional and empty nesters are moving downtown. Streetcars are especially popular among urban planners because they encourage the sort of density that allows for offices to be developed alongside homes, shops and restaurants.

"Streetcars are not designed to save time," says Mr. Blumenauer. "They're designed to change the way neighborhoods are built."

While streetcars lack speed and mobility, proponents say the role they play in urban development makes them a worthy transportation choice. They argue that by helping to draw development to urban areas such as downtowns, and by providing a transportation link in those areas, streetcars reduce the need for extra lanes of highways to the suburbs and limit the need for cars in and around downtowns.

In several cities, such as San Francisco and New Orleans, streetcars have never gone out of style as transportation systems. But many more were shut down following World War II in favor of buses.

That was the case in Tampa. The city once had one of the largest electric streetcar systems in the Southeast, with well over 100 cars and more than 50 miles of track.

In the mid-1980s, prompted in large part by nostalgia, a group calling itself the Tampa and Ybor City Street Railway Society set about to restore one of Tampa's derelict streetcars. Out of that effort evolved a broader downtown redevelopment campaign in which a new streetcar system was proposed, linking the city's convention center and the former cigar-manufacturing hub of Ybor City.

But county officials saw the focus on downtown as trivial compared with the needs of the larger Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area, where the majority of 2.7 million people rely heavily on their cars to get to and from work. County leaders such as Mr. Blair, formerly a Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority board member, ridiculed the $600,000 replica streetcars as costly toys.

"The concern was the use of public money," says Steven Polzin, a former regional transit authority board member who is a director of public transit research at the University of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research. "Tampa-area roads are wanting for resources."

But the controversy did little to deter development in the Channel District, a 212-acre stretch of land where the city has agreed to grant tax breaks for developers. Developers say they were also drawn by the streetcar line. Fida Sirdar, president of Key Developers Group LLC, for example, is spending several hundred thousand dollars to build a pedestrian walkway connecting the York Station streetcar stop to his Place at Channelside, a $100 million 244-unit condominium. "It's a big plus," he says.

In May, the Tampa City Council voted to extend the streetcar line by about a third of a mile into downtown, using federal money already in hand. By linking downtown and the burgeoning Channel District, officials hope they can transform the streetcar line into more of a commuter system, expanding the hours of operation and raising revenue.

Still, Tampa's streetcar line is still largely a tourist attraction, drawing 389,770 riders last year, more than half of them out-of-town visitors. A $4.75 million endowment set up to operate the streetcar system for 10 years is losing about $1 million a year. And Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio says she doesn't intend to put more money into the line, which the city owns jointly with Tampa's regional transit authority.

"Somebody is going to have to step up," says Ed Crawford, a spokesman for the regional transit authority. "It's clear we can't go on this way."

-- Jennifer S. Forsyth contributed to this article.

Email your comments to rjeditor@dowjones.com.

http://www.realestatejournal.com/propertyreport/newsandtrends/20070626-herrick.html


If rail were a negative, cities would not be expanding and implementing these types of systems at a rapid pace.

[vicupstate]

Talking up the MJ rail plan at work. I am getting the it brings the "bad" people out to the burbs and hurts home values. That is not what I have heard about Atlanta. I would like some more examples to show and have challenged my coworker to prove his side. Of course he had no examples.

Does he think buses bring out 'good' people?

Charlotte has had a stampede of new housing projects along it's new rail corridor.  This same area was a Emerson/Philllips Hwy type wasteland of warehouses and industrial uses.  Now it's the 'hot' area.

[second_pancake]

I'm sure Ock or Nawdry can provide numerous examples of rail raising property values.  As far as it bringing "bad" people out to the burbs....buses and cars already do that.  I'm sure that someone planning to break into your house won't be relying on a train to get him and the stolen goods back to where they came from.  Tell your co-workers perhaps we can stop this threat from happening, by closing off all the roads into the suburban neighborhoods instead?

WHOA!  Don't give anyone any ideas!  That's already been proposed in my neighborhood of old-farts who think we should gate the only reasonable way in and out of the freakin place (I'm in the defunct Baymeadows golf club) because of all the young whipper-snappers who are up at the crack of dawn to go to work and driving home at all hours of the night (i.e. 6:00pm) making a commotion with their cars.   

[RiversideGator]

I'm sure that someone planning to break into your house won't be relying on a train to get him and the stolen goods back to where they came from.

hahaha....   

[gatorback]

hmmm.  Stupid comment by co-workers.  Let's add a topic for that.  Tell your co-work we're adding a "Rant about your dumb co-workers" topic on our forum.  He or she can check out how stupid they've become.

[Ocklawaha]

"What do you mean this train don't have no baggage car? I got 3, 68" Plasma TV's, some silverware, a golden falcon statue, and a case of MD 20/20 to load on there... Say, maybe I make you an offer you can't refuse? Wanna gimmie a hand here Mr. Conductor man?"

and after the Railroad Police and JSO show up???

  Swell! Here's another one for you. She killed Miles.
                Oh, and I've got some exhibits: the boy's guns, one of Cairo's...
                ...and a $     bill I was supposed to be bribed with...
                ...and this black statuette here that all the fuss was about.
                What's the matter with your playmate? He looks brokenhearted.
                I bet when he heard Gutman's story, he thought he had me.
                Cut it out, Sam.
                Well, shall we be getting down to the Hall?
                It's heavy.
                What is it?
                The stuff that dreams are made of.

   Well, if you get a good break, you'll be out of Ocala in 40 years...
                ...and you can come back to me then.
                I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.
                - You're not... - Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over.
                The chances are you'll get off with life.
                If you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years.
                I'll be waiting for you.
                If they hang you, I'll always remember you.
                Don't, Sam!
                Don't say that, even in fun

Ocklawaha

[Ocklawaha]

After Light Rail went in in Santa Clara County California the home values climbed by $4.00 sq foot. Up in Minneapolis, they are up 61% within the City and 83% in the Burbs. These are just two of the many, Portland, Albuquerque, San Diego, Kenosha... all across the nation. Another factor that no one expected in the Twin-Cities was the downtown urban scene took off, club and bar owners, restaurants and shopping, the owners have said, "No one has to pay to park anymore, they just jump on the train, they don't even have to worry about driving home."

Why would we be any different?

Ocklawaha

[gatorback]

I've got one question.  In 37 parts.   What is the crime rate in Santa Clara County California?  I doubt they are the murder capital of the world.  Doesn't Jacksonville take that honor?  Or is it DC?  Crime gets around using all forms of transportation. 

Mark says the trains add value to your house without a doubt (Mark is from New Jersey).  Value means your home is more marketable.  More marketable means your house sells faster.  With the fall out of the housing market getting out faster means more money.  If you think trains bring in the less desirable you right.  So do busses, cars, cable TV trucks, and dilivery vans, and soon blimps.  I remember some criminals were even using flower trucks to rob homes.  Amazing.  I guess the root cause of the problem is gasoline since all these forms of transportation require petroleum and its byproducts.