First of two parts
We know that TARTA can and should be better at what it is. Could it also be something more?
Transit advocates at Reconnecting America wrote in 2012 that streetcars can “generate economic and business activity.” They credit Little Rock’s streetcar with $800 million worth of investment in its surrounding area.
But as a paper in the Journal of Public Transportation last year pointed out, Little Rock’s streetcar is geared toward tourists. Its ridership varies with the season, unlike that of buses. And it serves the Clinton Presidential Center and Park, which opened the same month as the streetcar and may do much more to attract tourists.
But a streetcar might help liven up downtown Toledo. Imagine, for example, a single streetcar on a single 15-minute loop through downtown and the Warehouse District. It might encourage more Toledoans to see downtown as a place to spend the evening. The investment represented by streetcar rails, which cannot easily be moved, might encourage entrepreneurs to develop restaurants and bars along the streetcar route, hoping that customers will come to them from downtown offices, or after driving downtown in the evening and parking in a lot that during the day is filled with office workers’ cars.
A trolley system. It must be modern and run on electricity supplied from a wire overhead. People who can afford private transportation will not be induced out of their cars unless the dingy, smelly diesel buses are retired — at least on some routes. From Dayton to San Francisco the trolley car has moved people efficiently, enlivened downtown areas, created charm, and attracted middle and upper class riders. A large component of the “T” in Boston, a superb and well-used system, is a trolley system. What if the Glass City had an all-glass trolley?
Even the authors of Reconnecting America’s “Midsize Cities on the Move” grant that subways and light rail require populations denser than midsize cities like Toledo tend to have. But there is a form of rapid transit some midsize cities have invested in in recent years: bus rapid transit.
Full-scale BRT is one end of a spectrum that has the conventional bus on the other. As you move toward BRT, you find buses that make fewer stops, perhaps at stations that are more than simple bus stops. You find buses running on dedicated roadways or controlling the stop lights so they aren’t delayed. You find frequent service and nicer buses. And you find distinctive branding.
Full-scale BRT might be a mistake for Toledo. We don’t have a lot of congestion, so there’s no great need to make sure buses don’t get stuck in traffic. And we don’t want congestion, so taking lanes away from cars to make bus-only routes would be a risky move.
Some features of BRT, however, might be useful. Imagine, for example, one or two lines that provided frequent service, largely over highways, connecting the most vibrant parts of our area — places that provide jobs, shopping, and entertainment. There might be just one stop downtown, and the Franklin Park Mall might be one or two stops from that.
And now imagine that each BRT station was also a stop on a trolley-style bus that made a 15-minute loop through that neighborhood. That would be a network that would bring together all the most exciting parts of Toledo. It might strengthen all of them — especially downtown.
First Published September 18, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
