Seattle's streetcar rides route to success

SEATTLE — This city's modern streetcar passes through the kind of neighborhood San Antonio downtown boosters dream about: a mix of shops, new residential units and tech companies that draw thousands of young professionals every day, many hopping on and off the rail line as it slowly ferries them through a once-abandoned industrial district.

But none of this — not the streetcar, not the neighborhood revitalization — would have been possible without billions of dollars in private investment from a variety of corporations, including tech giant Amazon.com and, most notably, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen.

More than 3,000 miles away in Florida, Tampa's streetcar travels a very different path, one that caters more to tourists and conventioneers, not professionals.

That streetcar is considered by some to be a novelty for visitors but of little use to commuters, since it doesn't link employment hubs or large residential centers.

The San Antonio Express-News visited the two cities to better understand what the Alamo City might expect from its streetcar, scheduled to open in 2017.

What's evident in both places is that route selection can spell the difference between a streetcar that thrives and one that falters. Their examples also illustrate the challenge of designing a system that serves commuters and tourists and that spurs economic development while making transit more attractive to prospective riders.

VIA Metropolitan Transit officials has yet to pick the north-south and east-west streetcar routes, but will recommend one of four options to board trustees Tuesday.

Whatever plan they endorse, San Antonio wants its streetcar to replicate elements of the Seattle and Tampa systems — the economic development successes around the Seattle line and the tourist-friendly allure of Tampa's.

Whether San Antonio will accomplish that could depend on a number of factors:

Deep corporate pockets helped build Seattle's streetcar line and the neighborhood around it.

It was billionaire Allen, through his real estate company Vulcan Inc., who jumpstarted transformation of the South Lake Union neighborhood over the past 15 years. He and other property owners paid for nearly half the streetcar's $53.3 million capital costs, with Vulcan alone putting in $8.6 million. In the six years since streetcar service began, ridership has increased by 75 percent, exceeding projections.

In San Antonio, no private investors or companies have pledged any money for the streetcar.

Tampa's vintage streetcar rumbles past the convention center and several entertainment venues before ending up in Ybor City, a historic cigar-manufacturing center that once was home to Spanish, Cuban, German and Italian immigrants, but now turns into an Austin-like Sixth Street at night.

Though the streetcar is geared for tourists, that hasn't saved it from plummeting ridership: the streetcar's hours and frequency of service have been slashed, and use has dropped by more than 34 percent from 2003 to 2012.

In San Antonio, one point of debate has centered on the alternatives for the east-west route. Put it close to the Convention Center and it likely will cater more to tourists; locate it along streets with vacant or underused land and it could boost residential and large-scale commercial development.

The Seattle streetcar has an advantage because the city is oriented toward transit, with many residents using a variety of options — light rail, buses, ferries and even water taxis. In contrast, Tampa has just buses and most everyone there relies on their vehicles.

To date, San Antonio's transit system is bus-only. VIA officials, in trying to encourage more “choice” riders to use transit, hope the streetcar will be the ticket.

Whatever the purpose for building a streetcar system, “make sure you put the right resources into making that work,” said Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of Tampa's tourism bureau.

“If it's a tourist piece that connects assets,” Corrada said, “then have that in mind when you market and when you sell it and when you set the fares for it and how you are going to operate it. If it's a mass transit kind of piece that's functional for daily commuters, then you need to think of how you position that.”

Creating a destination

On an average weekday morning, the Seattle streetcar is packed with passengers, many headed to jobs at several major employers, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Amazon, the corporate heartbeat of the South Lake Union neighborhood for which the streetcar is named.

The route begins just above Seattle's downtown and central district and then follows a narrow 2.6-mile loop north. It runs on a double track, so rail lines are embedded on either side of the street and streetcar vehicles don't have to stop to pass each other.

A ride costs $2.50, more than double VIA's regular $1.20 bus fare, and passengers rarely have to show their tickets. Since the vehicle runs at street level, passengers don't have to climb stairs as they would on a bus, and the ride feels as smooth as taking an elevator up a modern high-rise building.

Service started in 2007, six years after Portland, Ore., ushered in the modern streetcar movement with the opening of its system. Portland's success, particularly in fostering economic development around the streetcar line, has made it the model — and, often, the justification — for similar systems across the country. Portland officials have said the streetcar line engendered $3.5 billion in investment within two blocks of it.

Seattle's streetcar proponents hoped for similar successes in South Lake Union, which for years consisted of acres of warehouses and vacant buildings. Crime was a problem, and there were virtually no residences and few amenities to draw anyone here.

“That place was a dump 10 years ago,” said Heidi Happonen, a public relations professional whose firm works with Fred Hutchinson at the north end of the streetcar line. She recalls when a tire shop and guitar store were among the only operating businesses.

“It was not a place where you would go to spend an evening out; it was not a place you would typically spend time during the day unless you lived or you had business there,” said Mike McQuaid, president of the South Lake Union Community Council.

But that started to change after Allen, through Vulcan, bought more than 60 acres in South Lake Union, about a third of the developable land.

He pushed for the streetcar system, and under his influence, the neighborhood started to transform. There are more restaurants and places to live. At one stop, the streetcar opens directly in front of an always-busy Whole Foods Market. A former asphalt plant located right off of South Lake now is a museum about wooden boats.

But even as the neighborhood thrived, people still questioned the streetcar line's purpose, said Ethan Melone, Seattle's streetcar program manager. Ridership was above projections, but those goals were modest.

Attitudes started to change two or three years in, as ridership went up and more jobs and residential units were added.

“It (streetcar) really supported the potential employment growth that we saw for the area,” Melone said.

Annual ridership in 2008 was 451,000. By 2012, that had climbed to 792,879.

The arrival of the streetcar was one factor that helped spark even more development, said Lori Mason Curran, Vulcan Inc.'s real estate investment strategy director. Between 2004 and 2007, $900 million was invested in South Lake Union.

Since the streetcar opened, an additional $2.56 billion from public and private sources has been invested in the neighborhood, Mason Curran said.

She admitted it's difficult to say precisely how much of the neighborhood's success can be attributed to any one corporation or project. But the streetcar provided a transit link to the central business district that hadn't existed. Not long after it started, Amazon opened its headquarters here and now operates out of an 11-building campus that continues to expand. Now, the streetcar is almost an Amazon shuttle, with many of its passengers wearing the company's blue lanyards.

The fact that Amazon and three other South Lake Union businesses are paying $204,000, most coming from Amazon, to fund more frequent streetcar service during the afternoon rush hour, shows the importance of the streetcar, Mason Curran said.

“Amazon executives have told me that one of the reasons why they did buy that site, or buy property in that location, is the streetcar,” said Seattle City Councilman Tom Rasmussen, who chairs the city's transportation committee. “I think that's why Paul Allen and Vulcan wanted the streetcar. They wanted to make that neighborhood really attractive to prospective tenants or purchasers of property.”

The University of Washington opened a medical research lab campus in South Lake Union. Almost 2,800 people are employed at Fred Hutchinson, one of the world's preeminent research institutions on cancer and HIV/AIDS prevention.

“I bet the IQ in South Lake Union per capita is higher than anyplace else on the planet,” Happonen said.

The number of jobs in the area over the past 20 years has more than doubled by some counts, and now is closing in on 35,000, according to Vulcan estimates.

That growth would be like plunking USAA's entire San Antonio workforce of 16,400 people into downtown.

The city estimates more than 52,000 people are employed in San Antonio's central area, but that is defined broadly, extending south to U.S. 90, north to the Pearl Brewery, and into the West and East sides.

As noted, no private San Antonio developers or businesses have pledged money for the streetcar. And earlier this year, the City Council scrapped a provision that would have generated $15 million from private property owners along the future streetcar route because there wasn't enough support for the proposed funding plan.

Pat DiGiovanni, CEO of San Antonio's Centro Partnership, said in a recent letter to VIA that his organization will lead an initiative to secure between $10 million and $20 million in private-sector funding for the streetcar project. It's not yet clear where that money will come from.

VIA's Chief Development Officer Brian Buchanan said the transit agency is not actively pursuing relationships with the private sector but added that VIA is “obviously looking for any and all financial contributions to the project.”

A deciding factor?

Tampa's streetcar bears little resemblance to Seattle's sleek, modern system. Ridership has steadily gone down, and the economic development benefits are debatable.

The streetcar itself is historic, made with vintage parts. Unlike Seattle, Tampa's streetcar mainly connects tourist and visitor attractions, not high employment areas. The line tracks the path of the Tampa waterfront, through an entertainment and retail area near downtown called the Channel District.

The rail line also passes several relatively new residential developments, condos and lofts. Then it turns north and heads to Ybor City.

To Michael English, all those new residences were built thanks to the streetcar.

“When the streetcar alignment was announced, property was still very cheap in that neighborhood,” said English, president of the Tampa Historic Streetcar Inc., the nonprofit that manages the streetcar. “It shot up immediately, and then the development boom started.”

As in Seattle, the area around Tampa's streetcar offered minimal residential options before the rail line was built.

“You did not have but a speck of residential and now that's our residential growth area,” said Donna Chen, director of marketing and communications for the Tampa Downtown Partnership.

In the mid-2000s, developers built more than 1,900 condos, lofts and apartment units in the Channel District, either on the streetcar line or within two blocks of it, said Bob McDonaugh, Tampa's administrator of economic opportunity. Today, he said those units are about 95 percent to 97 percent occupied.

In July, another 356-unit apartment complex, which is mostly complete, opened about two blocks from the line. Another 636 units are under construction or planned nearby.

But McDonaugh doesn't buy the argument that streetcar was responsible for the boom — at least not by itself.

Developers built in Channelside because of the proximity to downtown and the waterfront, not the streetcar line. The cruise ship terminal and the aquarium, for example, could not have been located anywhere else.

“If you talk to any of the people along the streetcar line, they'll say, yes, it's an amenity. Yes, it was a contributing factor into perhaps why they located where they were. But the deciding factor?” McDonaugh

said. “No.

“Saying it (the development) was because of the streetcar line is just not accurate.”

McDonaugh's thinking reflects statements made by DiGiovanni. He and other downtown San Antonio stakeholders met with experts from cities that had pursued similar streetcar projects. Their advice: don't count on a streetcar to spur development where there is little to none. Rather, build a streetcar line that connects people to places where they want to go.

Small ball

Seattle's streetcar provides that connection, linking South Lake Union to a busy transit plaza just north of downtown that's a hub for several bus lines; a light rail station is about a block away. That's significant in Seattle, where daily commutes often involve taking at least two forms of transit.

About two-thirds of Seattle downtown commuters don't drive to work, according to Commute Seattle, a nonprofit transportation management association. Of the commuters, 43 percent take public transit.

Seattle resident Lucy Blue takes the streetcar a few times a week to her job as a youth educator at the Center for Wooden Boats on Lake Union, connecting to it by bus from her house.

“There's not any place to park down here,” Blue said.

But she added, “I do wish (the streetcar) went a few more places.”

Streetcar ridership, though steadily growing, pales in comparison to other transit modes — about 28,000 people on average rode the light-rail system on weekdays in 2012.

Average daily ridership on streetcar was 2,735 in July.

“Streetcars are kind of small ball in Seattle,” said Zach Shaner, marketing and outreach coordinator for Commute Seattle. “They're economic development tools.” Seattle's streetcar doesn't travel as far as the light rail, and it doesn't travel as fast because the vehicles move in mixed traffic and stop frequently, waiting 20 to 25 seconds at each stop. San Antonio's will operate much the same way, traveling at an average speed of 8 mph, Buchanan said, about how fast a bus moves through downtown.

To make the streetcar zippier, Seattle officials are planning a downtown line that will travel in its own right of way.

“My thought has been that if we're going to be adding a new mode such as a streetcar, it has to have benefits and advantages that go beyond the modes and the systems that we have now,” said Rasmussen, the Seattle city councilman, and in “certain neighborhoods, the streetcar can.”

Buchanan believes streetcar ultimately could help transform San Antonio's downtown, a tourist mecca but one where empty storefronts and vacant office spaces are common.

The comments once said about South Lake Union — it was not a place a person would have reason to visit at night — are similar to what's been said about the area around VIA's West Side transit center, west of Interstate 35, that will be a hub for the streetcar.

He compares San Antonio to Phoenix a decade ago, before that city opened a light rail system that is 20 miles long, about four to five times longer than San Antonio's streetcar will be. That area around the Phoenix line is now infused with activity, and ridership is well above projections.

“I'm not saying San Antonio's going to get to Seattle, but the same thing happened to Phoenix. It was dead,” Buchanan said. But the environment changed with the arrival of rail. Soon, the system became a way of life.

“There's a population base that will ride the train every single day,” Buchanan said.

Arguably, Seattle's streetcar has become a convenient transit mode for the growing number of people who live and work in South Lake Union. But the streetcar's usefulness for people who have no reason to come to what is essentially Paul Allen's neighborhood is questionable.

Although the number of jobs in South Lake Union has soared, downtown Seattle — where the streetcar does not go — remains the city's biggest jobs center, with 197,000 employees, Commute Seattle says.

Streetcar proponents say ongoing expansions of the streetcar network, including a downtown line, will make the South Lake Union route even more useful to riders.

Until then, Seattle resident Marianne, who did not want to give her last name, probably still will view the South Lake Union rail line as the “streetcar to nowhere.”

She rode it one recent afternoon back to her workplace after running an errand on her lunch break. But after factoring in the time she spent waiting for the streetcar, walking would have been faster.

“In fact, I'd be there now instead of waiting,” she said. She took the streetcar only because she bought candles at a nearby department store that were too heavy to carry.

“If I see it coming, I'll take it,” Marianne said. “If I don't, I'll just walk.”

Soon, she was joined by a coworker, who shared her sentiments but had a reason of his own that forced him to ride the streetcar.

He had a broken foot.