Mueller Lake Park Outdoor Amphitheater
Streetcar Plan as Misguided as Invasion of Iraq
RECEIVED Sun., July 22, 2007
Dear Editor,
The streetcar boosterism detailed in the July 20 Chronicle [“Streetcar Desires,” News] reminds me of nothing more than the collective crack talk which lead to the 2003 invasion of Iraq (with the Chronicle dutifully playing the role of Fox News – just as fair and balanced). The question I continue to have is what can a streetcar do that a bus can't do better, for an order of magnitude less money? "Why, it's obvious," reply the self-declared experts. "Streetcars stimulate high-density development, and we all know that 'real' people won't ride a bus.” Hogwash. Zoning and market demand drive development, and people will most certainly ride a bus that offers them a sensible transportation option. I just returned from two weeks in a city (Berlin) that has arguably the best public transportation system in the world. In addition to a central and "outer loop" elevated rail system (which provides service similar to monorail), they have an extensive subway system, a number of streetcars, and comprehensive 24-hour bus service. The buses are packed with suits and tourists, and everyone uses the grade-separated rail to get from one area of town to the other; Berliners are encouraged to purchase monthly transit passes as a matter of rote. The lowest common denominator of the system? The streetcars. That's right: Buses are more popular than streetcars, perhaps because the streetcar lines were laid out 75 or a 100 years ago and the buses have mutable routing, which allows them to take folks to and from the places they want to go today. Austin should think long and hard before investing even more money in toy transit systems while ignoring basic public-transit needs. Does anyone remember the 2004 promise of rapid bus service, for example, you know, the service we were supposed to get before commuter rail?
The streetcar boosterism detailed in the July 20 Chronicle [“Streetcar Desires,” News] reminds me of nothing more than the collective crack talk which lead to the 2003 invasion of Iraq (with the Chronicle dutifully playing the role of Fox News – just as fair and balanced). The question I continue to have is what can a streetcar do that a bus can't do better, for an order of magnitude less money? "Why, it's obvious," reply the self-declared experts. "Streetcars stimulate high-density development, and we all know that 'real' people won't ride a bus.” Hogwash. Zoning and market demand drive development, and people will most certainly ride a bus that offers them a sensible transportation option. I just returned from two weeks in a city (Berlin) that has arguably the best public transportation system in the world. In addition to a central and "outer loop" elevated rail system (which provides service similar to monorail), they have an extensive subway system, a number of streetcars, and comprehensive 24-hour bus service. The buses are packed with suits and tourists, and everyone uses the grade-separated rail to get from one area of town to the other; Berliners are encouraged to purchase monthly transit passes as a matter of rote. The lowest common denominator of the system? The streetcars. That's right: Buses are more popular than streetcars, perhaps because the streetcar lines were laid out 75 or a 100 years ago and the buses have mutable routing, which allows them to take folks to and from the places they want to go today. Austin should think long and hard before investing even more money in toy transit systems while ignoring basic public-transit needs. Does anyone remember the 2004 promise of rapid bus service, for example, you know, the service we were supposed to get before commuter rail?
Patrick Goetz
[News Editor Michael King responds: Since Patrick Goetz begins with such a persuasive analogy – Streetcar = Iraq War – one wonders if many readers will proceed past his first sentence. But then he goes on to demand, "Why can't Austin be more like Berlin?" I'm waiting for him to suggest a few thousand Allied air raids to reduce the city to a fit beginning for a new transit system. Of course streetcars are no substitute for a full mass-transit system, and Katherine Gregor's article "Streetcar Desires" made no such claim. We certainly welcome Goetz's call for a better citywide bus system. But which is the bigger problem: that streetcars are only a part of the solution or that his employer, UT Austin, will not even discuss a unified transit system for the city in which it is a major population center and political player? All the transit enthusiasm in Germany does absolutely nothing to alter the political circumstances on the ground in Austin, where we happen to live.]
