Streetcar Campaign Revs Back Up

New Haven should take a second look at developing running streetcars from and to Union Station, in the view of one visiting transportation expert.

That expert, Norman Garrick, made the pitch at a spirited meeting of the New Haven Urban Design League that drew 50 people to the community room of the New Haven Free Public Library last Thursday evening.

Streetcars are ​“the perfect urban vehicle” to provide some speed and perfect access, said Garrick, the founding director of UConn’s Center for Transportation and Urban Planning.

Streetcars also have a record of stimulating economic development along their routes, he said.

The meeting occurred as city officials are making a second attempt to gain approval from the Board of Aldermen to accept federal funding for the next stage of a feasibility study for the return to town of a streetcar system.

The ​“starter” system the city has proposed would run in a three-mile loop beginning at Union Station and then travel up Church Street/ Whitney Avenue to about Grove or Edwards Street. Then in a gesture to link the train with the medical district and downtown, it would descend back down Temple, with a jog down Church Street South and to Union Station.

In all there would be 12 stops, with a cost, if built, at between $20 and $30 million. Click here for details and the economic benefits it is advertised to bring.

In October the Board of Aldermen voted 16 to 6 against spending approximately $200,000 to match $800,000 in already approved money from the Federal Transit Administration. The city can’t access the $800,000 without ponying up the match. (Click here for that story.)

At that meeting last fall, Hill Alderman — and now board President— Jorge Perez argued that in tough economic times $200,000 is too much to throw at a continuing study for trolleys.

A month later city Economic Development Director Kelly Murphy resubmitted the request for approval with a new twist. It adds a clause that the $200,000 match will be sought from funds provided either through the state or regional transportation sources.

The board ​“lost its direction” in comparing the value of streetcars to after-school programs for kids, argued Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell. ​“It’s like apples and oranges.”

Farwell said she hopes the library meeting will help begin a more vigorous conversation about the streetcar and related transportation issues. She said she wanted the discussion prompted by Garrick’s lecture to provide tools for aldermen and the public to see transportation’s larger role in the city’s life and economic future.

Which is why she began Thursday’s proceedings by declaring, ​“The biggest barrier to employment is transportation.”

“Maybe the city needs to do a better job of explaining the benefits [of the starter loop] to the entire New Haven community,” agreed City Office of Sustainability Director Christine Eppstein-Tang. She said the plan would benefit all wards, not just those the tracks pass through. Critics had argued that the plan unfairly focused on East Rock and Yale/downtown commuters. Some suggested sending the inaugural line either up Whalley into Dixwell and then Westville or out Grand Avenue towards Fair Haven.

Deputy Economic Development Director Tony Bialecki, who was also in attendance Thursday night, said that the initial grants for the streetcar system are premised on the density a downtown route offers.

“Like all these things, it’ s incremental,” he said. In future phases of the streetcar system, he said, ​“it’s a no-brainer to go from Fair Haven Heights to Westville, but it’s not part of the initial plan.”

The second objection is that a proposed maintenance facility or trolley ​“barn” would occupy what is now a triangular parking lot on Church Street South. ​“Would you want a trolley barn in your backyard?” Farwell asked.

The details of the plan did not specifically come up Thursday night in Garrick’s wide-ranging talk, which was called ​“Debunking Transportation Myths and Sacred Cows.” But many attendees echoed his view that a streetcar system would help the city as part of a larger transit transformation. That includes Downtown Crossing project, the re-imagining of Union Station and the rebuilding of the Church Street South projects, among others.

“Sexier“Transit

Paulette Cohen of the Urban Design League board asked Garrick why streetcars would seed development and buses would not. One of the arguments the city must make to federal funders is that streetcars can accomplish goals that an extended bus network cannot.

Garrick did not have a definite answer except to suggest that people simply respond differently to streetcars. He called it a bit of a mystery.

It wasn’t a mystery to New Haven-based civil engineer Sam Goater. ​“Buses just aren’t sexy,” he offered.

The city doesn’t adequately coordinate the transit systems it already has, noted audience member Lynne Shapiro (pictured). So is it ready to add streetcars to the mix?

Shapiro said she’s been taking buses in New Haven for 20 years. She noted that the Sunday 4:34 p.m. train from Grand Central arrives at 6:21. That’s precisely one minute after the J bus to Whitney Avenue, which she’d like to get on, has already rumbled off.

If Farwell hoped many of the new class of aldermen would be in attendance to hear the pitch, that was not the case. The only alderman present was Hill South’s Dolores Colon.

“Why not run it [the starter streetcar] down the Route 34 Connector? That’s where the [economic] development will be,” she said after the meeting.

Colon also expressed hesitation about the repair barn location, which is in her ward. ​“I want to see what the barn is. Does it bring pollution? I have many seniors in Tower One/Tower East who are on oxygen. Church Street South is [already] surrounded by all these fumes. I need to get more information and see their final plans.”

Garrick said his ​“quick take” on the advisability of the downtown starter route is that the city should go with it. His view is that of all the projects the city is juggling, revitalizing Union Station by overcoming its isolation is the most important, because it is the hub of the transportation wheel.

The concerns expressed ​“shouldn’t be reason to turn down the money. Anything to get streetcars going is a good idea,” he said.