Nicollet-Central Streetcar

[helsinki]

I like Jeff Speck's argument for the utility of streetcars and think it is a perfect fit for this corridor. He writes:

"Streetcars make the most sense when a large area of vacant or underutilized land sits just beyond walking distance from a walkable downtown. In these cases, a streetcar may represent the best opportunity to connect that area to the downtown in a way that is has never been connected before, spurring it's development." (Walkable City, 152)

Just look at a satellite map of this corridor; the underutilization of land, proximity to downtown, and connection to multiple transit corridors is self evident.

[twincitizen]

I'm coming around to the idea of a shorter streetcar line to tie the densest nodes together. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of rapid bus (actually 10x the expense of rapid bus, har). Lake Street to a loop around Hennepin/1st Ave NE sounds about right. I still like Rapid Bus for the larger corridor (American Blvd to Uni & 53rd). I'm having trouble figuring out what the local 18 bus would do when reaching Lake Street. It can't just easily get on the highway to run express for people that want to go downtown. Forced transfers probably aren't a good idea, but I suppose people would have the choice of an express bus at the 35-Lake BRT station or getting on the streetcar. The northern terminus of the streetcar is a little easier to figure out since it's so close to downtown. With the streetcar crossing the river on Hennepin, you might as well have the 10 continue to cross on the Central/3rd Ave Bridge as it does now.

I'd like to see a couple stops cut downtown. Why would it stop at 5th and 4th? 5th St makes sense for the LRT connection, but there won't be as many buses on 4th to connect to once Green is up and running in a year.

[lordmoke]

TIF for transit?
http://finance-commerce.com/2013/03/nic ... rough-tif/

[woofner]

Ann Lenczewski is the best. "Very iffy and specious" indeed. And why would the city want to take 9 miles of some of its most valuable real estate off the tax rolls? That seems like terrible fiscal policy. And only applying TIF to some segments would be yet more arbtirary. I'm in favor of getting creative in funding for transit, but this seems more like getting stupid.

[twincitizen]

We knew this was coming though, right? I thought it was pretty clear from recent Rybak sound bytes that this was their plan.

If we pay for the streetcar through increased tax base from redevelopment, what happens when the neighborhoods say "NO" to the height and density needed to attain said tax base increase? I am VERY curious how this will play out in Whittier. I mean, is Nicollet Avenue through Whittier even zoned for the level of density/height that will be necessary to pay for this thing? If you want this scheme to work, you prrrobably shouldn't vote for a councilmember that is known for opposing rezoning.

Also, can we stop calling it Nicollet-Central streetcar yet? It's going from Lake Street to just across the river, where it will loop around using Hennepin/1st Ave NE. That should be the final segment too, none of this starter crap. Would/Should we really run a streetcar further down Nicollet to 46th before building one on Broadway to make up for bad-choices on Bottineau?

[mulad]

On Twitter, David Levinson suggested a special assessment instead of TIF -- would that be possible to do without requiring state-level approval? Of course, if I understand correctly, special assessments are usually applied to properties immediately adjacent to a street or water/sewer line being upgraded, and come in one big lump sum. A streetcar would be expensive enough that the cost would need to be spread across a corridor several blocks wide and it would probably have to be paid back over a period of years or decades. If assessments scaled up with the size of a parcel, I wonder if some of the bigger ones along the corridor might get broken up, though some of the more sprawling complexes in the area are hospitals and schools...

[Andrew_F]

No thanks on the special assessments. I don't think you'll find a single business/property owner in favor of the streetcar on Nicollet if that's how it's going to be funded.

[MNdible]

Didn't Portland fund their streetcar with a TIF-like tool? And isn't everything that Portland does the model that we're supposed to be following?

Seriously, I'd need to see the numbers crunched on this, but I wouldn't rule it out before seeing them. And I agree that a special assessment would be a horrible way of funding this. How would a single family home located 4 blocks off of Nicollet react to that idea?

[mulad]

Yeah, I don't think it would go over very well either -- I just figured I'd mention it since Prof. Levinson has modeled property taxes in some of his work and understands them better than I do. I'm not sure if he was correct to push it, though. I do think someone with some actual GIS skills should go and price out some of the different possibilities and see how each option would work out for some typical properties, but it's hard to predict where the market will take things anyway.

I poked at several properties near Nicollet & 29th. If they're typical of the corridor as a whole (extending 3-4 blocks either side of Nicollet), it looks like the cost of a streetcar would be around 150% of a property's annual taxes, or an extra 5% each year for 30 years. Looking at it another way, it seems that TIF could pay for it if about 5% of currently undeveloped land suddenly became filled in with typically-valued properties (well, assuming the initial value was zero, which is the case for some empty parcels, but obviously not all). Or, if we imagine that development were spread out over the whole 30-year span and the average development goes up 15 years from now, about 10% of land would either need to go from empty to populated, or see its value double through improvements because of the streetcar. And the need for new or updated properties would be mitigated as market forces drive property values up in general.

Those numbers are pretty fuzzy, but I think the general idea holds. If just one or two parcels on a block gets filled in or improved substantially across the corridor over the next few decades, a TIF district will probably work. That seems doable to me.

[MNdible]

Depending on how it gets set up, the TIF district could also be capturing the value of existing properties whose values increased (as a result of the streetcar, or due to general appreciation, or even just due to inflation), not just new developments.

[fehler]

And cluster the valuations around the stations. If I'm 1/4 mile from a station, I wouldn't want my tax burden increasing the same rate as someone on the doorstep.

[UptownSport]

More assurance Rybak is totally behind this:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/displa ... the-future

Transportation planners in Minneapolis are still exploring whether streetcars or enhanced buses make more sense along Nicollet and other major arterial streets. That study is a prerequisite for pursuing federal funding. But Rybak has already made up his mind, and he urged the City Council to come up with a funding plan for streetcars this year.

[mulad]

Finance & Commerce says that a bill allowing Minneapolis to create a TIF district has been moving forward. It was approved by the House but still needs to be negotiated with the Senate.

http://finance-commerce.com/2013/04/tif ... th-limits/ [free]

[talindsay]

Personally I'm glad to see the bill moving in the way it is: I think TIF is overused in many places, and while this specific project seems to me like a pretty good fit for TIF funding, I really doubt that there are too many TIF-appropriate transit projects outside the core cities, Rochester, and Duluth.

Also, I'm glad to see the "starter" segment being defined in something close to a solid term as the 3.5-mile segment from Lake to University. Obviously we would all like to see the initial segment be long enough to actually eliminate bus *lines*, but at least Lake-to-University is long enough to capture the highest-capacity core - many, if not a majority, of current trips in the corridor will go from single-seat bus trips to single-seat streetcar trips. Honestly I was afraid it would be whittled down to a downtown shuttle, running from the Convention Center to the River and back, and hence replacing no actual buses. Going from Lake to University, it will have long-term use even if it never gets expanded.

I do wonder though, Lake-to-University keeps the line entirely in dense neighborhoods for its entire run - so where will they put the carbarn? If it weren't crossing the light rail tracks at the busiest intersection in the state they could simply provide a wye and have the streetcars live in the Hiawatha or Central maintenance facilities, but I can't imagine disrupting 5th and Nicollet that much; so will they be putting it maintenance facility next to the Greenway maybe? There is a little free space there.

[mattaudio]

I'm actually pleased to see that the streetcar could end at Lake instead of ending at 46th. We need to focus on connecting 1st and 2nd ring urban neighborhoods with higher service transit to meet the demand potential and reduce the island effect of the CBD.

Maybe the Metro Transit garage at 31st/Nicollet could be reworked to provide for these streetcars? It would be great if the existing garage could be reworked to actually have sidewalk-facing amenities at the same time, since it's currently a hostile urban fortress.

[mullen]

i think lake to university is substantial to start with. this is running through the heart of the city. in some other cities streetcars are treated like a tourist, kitsch service, more or less. i remember feeling this way about the Tampa streetcar.

[Tcmetro]

Seems like MT should go ahead with aBRT lines in these corridors as well, streetcar line is too short for a lot of the trips taken on the Central Ave bus, and a good amount of the Nicollet bus.

As for Nicollet Garage, it isn't too bad. Urban bus garages are always difficult though. Perhaps someday the bus garage could be moved to a more industrial location, maybe near the Granary Road area.

[UptownSport]

I'd really be against such a short line- It needs to replace, substantially, the entire line
I don't believe something is better than nothing, either.
#1 issue it adds a third mode to Auto's (cars, delivery trucks, taxis) and buses. It'll just be clog up city.

#2, I constantly think of the big 'IF' on northstar- As far as I understand it- There's no plan to actually complete it- It's in Limbo and no one can say it wasn't foreseen.
In short, what's built is what you get

#3 As Mullen says, it'll just be a novelty

I'd love to see a streetcar down Nicollet, believe it'd be a perfect match for eat street.

[woofner]

I'm a little surprised Lenczewski let this one through, actually (maybe she couldn't stop it). While I can sort of see the arguments that this use of TIF at least has a better nexus between the use of the money and the increase in tax base, I don't see how it anyone could claim it's fiscally responsible to tie up $50m in revenue rather than use the City's ample bonding capacity.

Before anyone starts grinning too wide about a 3.5 mile starter line, keep in mind that it would still be contingent on small starts funding, and in fact contingent on receiving one of the largest small starts grants ever. I could see it costing $35-50m just to rehab one of the river bridges for rail.

I am really curious to see what kind of BS rationale they'll have for recommending streetcar over enhanced bus, though. Maybe they'll finally prove the elusive and widely cited theory that rail attracts more TOD than buses?

[talindsay]

I know it's unrealistic but I rather hope they build the foundation (ballast, etc.) to LRT spec instead of just ULRT. I don't believe the additional support necessary would be much of an issue on this corridor, except on the bridges - which is why Matt's comment made me think of this. Everything else can be speced as "streetcar" instead of "light rail" but if the rail bed itself is LRT spec then they could later decide to run (for example) the Type I LRVs on this when they're no longer up to the expectations for the main rapid transit lines. After all, in Europe our LRVs are used for "streetcar"-like tram service.