Another City Goes STREETCAR!

[Ocklawaha]

Hello JTA, DING! DING!

Streetcars may be newest way to get around city
By Mark Ginocchio
Norwalk Advocate
October 12, 2007

STAMFORD - To help prevent traffic problems of the future, the city may turn to a transit system of the past.
City officials yesterday announced a $125,000 study of a 'light rail' transit route, using electric streetcars - similar to ones used in Stamford more than 50 years ago - to connect commercial areas in the South End, downtown and Bulls Head.

'This is a little bit like back to the future,' Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said during a news conference at the Government Center. 'Many of those systems were torn down with the rise of the automobile.'

But now many cities are bringing back electric streetcars, which could carry three times as many commuters as a typical bus and run at faster speeds if built with their own steel track right-of-way.

More than 20 U.S. cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore, San Diego and Sacramento, have implemented some kind of light rail service.

Some of the larger light rail systems have a daily ridership of more than 100,000, city officials said.

With new development planned around the Stamford train station, the 80-acre South End development by Antares Investment Partners and the redevelopment of the Lord & Taylor store at Bulls Head, the city needs to look into this project, Malloy said.

'We're convinced this makes a lot of sense in a city like Stamford,' he said. 'We know we have the ridership.'

The 2.3-mile route would likely begin at the Antares Harbor Point at Washington Boulevard and Atlantic Street in the South End and could include stops at the train station, Landmark Square and Ridgeway Shopping Center, then head to Bulls Head.

The city hopes to have a contractor selected for the study before the year's end, Stamford Transportation Planner Joshua Lecar said. The study should take about six months.

It is not known how long construction and implementation would take after the study, but Malloy said it was important to get the groundwork done now.

'This is a vision,' Malloy said. 'It is a long-term project.'

Malloy was optimistic that, eventually, the light rail link could be built because the city has had success with other long-term projects like the Mill River park, corridor redevelopment and the Urban Transitway - a mile-long road between the East Side and the train station, which broke ground last month.

Similar to the Mill River and Urban Transitway projects, the light rail project would compete for federal grant money, Malloy said. State money is also possible, he added.

The city had budgeted $125,000 for the study, he said.

Malloy said he did not expect much land would be acquired for the project through eminent domain. It's likely that for stretches of the route, the electric car route could be integrated into the current road system, though the study would help determine whether that's feasible, he said.

More transit planners are turning to light rail as a traffic solution because it's less expensive than commuter rail and more desirable than some bus systems.

At a Transit Oriented Development conference in Southport last week, Shelley Poticha, president and chief executive officer of Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development in Oakland, Calif., advocated for street cars.

Floyd Lapp, executive director of the South Western Regional Planning Agency in lower Fairfield County, said the plan would help to reduce congestion.

'Light rail has a greater carrying capacity than the bus . . . and when traveling on a fixed route, could move more rapidly,' Lapp said. And even with some buses using more environmentally friendly fuels, 'the fuel burned (by rapid transit) is cleaner.'

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