A Streetcar Without Desire

So Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman wants a streetcar service to run downtown. Great. For a minute there I thought we had run out of ideas for things the city didn’t need that nobody would use. Then again, this seems to be a dominant paradigm of though amongst the powers that be in public transportation, and not just in Ohio. Too often multi-million dollar transport boondoggles are forced upon the citizens of major (or even minor) metropolitan areas whether they want the service or not. With this obsolete and costly transport burden upon the citizenry, Columbus may yet join the proud ranks of my beloved Portland as cities whose sense of nostalgia overwhelmed their knowledge of the market.

To be fair, there was a period in American history where streetcars were both popular and profitable. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, they were reliably known as the most effective form of mass transit within major cities, replacing the horse-drawn carriage (at least Mayor Coleman doesn’t want to bring those back). They also were electric-powered, which conserved rationed fuel during wartime, and provided a means for commoners to get around the city, since the personal automobile was still considered a rare luxury item. Like most means of mass transportation, however, the streetcar died out in popularity once owning a car became more common.

The postwar popularity of the automobile made getting from 15^th and High to the Statehouse in less than half an hour a possibility and represented a sense of independence and self-reliance that socialist government public policies have never been able to destroy. The simple fact is that no matter how high gas prices get, no matter how many different and quirky forms of public transportation are conceived and constructed, and no matter what Algore’s scare tactics might allege, people will never give up their cars. Public transportation nowadays represents a niche market at best, to which the likes of college students like myself belong. If these riders had cars (and if I had the ability to drive one), they wouldn’t be riding buses. It simply makes no sense to drive your car to a designated “Park and Ride” location only to take a bus to get to your destination in a lot more time, other than it making the rider feel warm and fuzzy about saving the planet. Pollution is still pollution whether it comes from your car or their bus.

Granted there are cities in this country that can and do support public transportation like New York’s subway, Washington’s metro, and the Bay Area’s BART. Columbus is not one of them. Its population and rider statistics suggest a mid-sized city in love with their cars, a combination that proves lethal to these projects. Again, that doesn’t seem to bother transit agencies like COTA. My hometown of Portland recently installed a streetcar line running through a downtown loop. Not only is ridership well below what was projected but the streetcar is entirely dependent on TriMet for funding, since it operates in Fareless Square, where all bus, light rail, and streetcar rides are free. The result is a multi-million dollar white elephant that only adds to the traffic congestion it was supposed to fight in a similarly-sized city. But at least it looks nice from the window of your car.