Not exactly. Usually the underground utilities need protection before you lay the streetcar rails, and that often escalates into new mains, new sewer pipes, etc., and a complete rebuilding of the street. That way a city gets a lot of its utility costs shifted to the federal transportation budget. See Houston, for example.

And the railcar probably costs a good bit more than a glorified bus. It will last at least twice as long, after all.

So this figure does not strike me as being out of line. And I agree with you, it’s a very reasonable goal to have a tram in every medium sized city in America. Like the French cities, excuse my language. If this is designed as a starter line, and later some lines connect to reach campuses, hospitals, employment centers, and residential neighborhoods, all the better.

While I sympathize with the opinion expressed in the post that the money could be better spent elsewhere, I have to think that a short streetcar connecting a small town’s biggest destinations with a commuter train should be standard for all cities over 100,000 people. I know the money is in short supply, and ridership would be low, but the theory is sound.

Indeed, could this be a longer route if it was a tram-train?

While streetcars cater well to dense neighborhoods, they also encourage higher density development in neighborhoods which aren’t as dense when the streetcar is put into service.

Every city in the USA is faced with this dilemma. Some motivation (e.g. tax money) is required for us to build streetcar lines especially in medium sized cities so that more dense development will occur “naturally”.

Some of Portland’s recent redevelopment may have been “triggered” by a streetcar, but that development was the result of many other necessary conditions. Portland today is the product of decades of aggressive planning, consensus building, and hard work in the trenches of policy. Portland’s goals had been worked through in minute detail, so that everything the city did — parking pricing, zoning, street design, even the government’s own locational decisions — was an expression of a commitment to building a pedestrian-oriented city.

So I’d like to see the Feds say this. We’ll fund your streetcar when you demonstrate that you’ve laid the groundwork for it. Show us your zoning, your parking policy, your criteria for pedestrian and bike facilities. When you can show that you’ve duplicated the consensus and commitment that got Portland to where it was when the streetcar was proposed in the 90s, then you’re ready for a Federally funded streetcar.