Get on the train Connect Old Port and Bayside by trolley BY SAM PFEIFLE

It’s the little progressive idea that could: light rail. Every urban designer employed by every city in America is probably sick to death of the idea by now, pushed as it is by train nuts, enviros, and nostalgists, but generally scoffed at by the community at large:

" They don’t pay for themselves. "

" They block traffic. "

" They’re too slow, and they don’t go where I want to go. "

Generally, that’s all true, mostly because of the people who are pushing for light-rail creation. The train nuts go overboard and want trains criss-crossing entire cities with huge initial investments. The enviros talk about people using their cars less, which everyone knows just won’t happen, and so their ideas are discounted in whole cloth. The nostalgists talk about how the goddam things smell!

What’s lost is that light rail offers no panacea, but in the right spot, with the proper perspective, can be extremely beneficial to a city, enhancing its image, providing an alternative to car traffic at least some of the time, and encouraging movement around the city that wouldn’t otherwise occur.

What portion of the city do people most want to revitalize? Bayside. And that, in fact, is where most of the new development is occurring nowadays: Wild Oats, Hollywood Video, Gorham Savings Bank, and the new AAA offices have all erupted on Marginal Way in the past five years. It’s only a matter of time before the old Public Works building gets refurbished into some kind of cool live/work space.

What portion of the city do people most want to go to? The Old Port. That’s where everything’s happening, from Commercial Street to Congress Street, Maple Street to India Street. Much of the new housing is being built right between Bayside and the Old Port, too.

Logic says you might want to connect them. Rather than blowing out Franklin Arterial and contributing to what is already becoming an unbearable traffic situation, let’s run a trolley from the corner of Preble Street and Marginal Way up into Monument Square, along Congress Street to Exchange Street, down Exchange into the heart of the Old Port, taking a left at the corner of Exchange and Fore, and then diving down to Commercial Street somewhere by the Custom House to Casco Bay Lines and possibly hook into the Narrow Guage railroad.

Think of the stops: Whole Grocer/Wild Oats/Hannaford plaza, the Preble Street Resource Center, the Portland Public Market, Monument Square, the Post Office, City Hall, the Portland Press Herald, Tommy’s Park, Fore and Exchange, and finally Casco Bay Lines. So much of the Peninsula would be opened up by a simple two-mile stretch of track, linking many of Portland’s most desirable spots with only four turns.

People coming from the islands would need their cars much less. People parked in the Old Port would be much more likely to hit the Public Market. Winter time wouldn’t be as much of an obstacle to Portland’s foot-traffic-dependent businesses. It’s a great fit, and there’s plenty of room along the one-way Preble (just drop to one lane) and the plenty-wide Congress (just grab a bit of Monument Square and some of the overly big sideway). Plus, it’s about time Exchange Street was closed to car traffic and made into a showpiece pedestrian mall. This will give the tourists a guaranteed great view on a summer day.

Now, the money, etc.: First of all, trolleys used to criss-cross the city (why they don’t anymore is an entirely different story). My money says there are tracks for the taking all along this route, but it’s possible there aren’t. So, we’ll go with a start-from-scratch model. Let’s look to Kenosha, Wisconsin, an oft-cited example of light-rail development. They built a two-mile track for about $4 million in 2000, including a maintenance building. They’re a city of 91,000, who were looking to connect their bus service to a new development of an old industrial site. It’s a loop, rather than the back-and-forth I’m proposing, and has 17 stops. The ridership in 2003 was 67,000, which was successful enough that they’re thinking of adding another spur to connect another 34-acre development. The $.25 fare pays for about 30 percent of the operation, they figure.

Reclamation projects are more numerous in towns and cities comparable to Portland. There’s 15,000-person Issaquah, Washington, who’ve revamped an old mile-long track through volunteer labor and purchased three cars from Aspen, Colorado, and San Francisco for $38,000. The San Pedro portion of Los Angeles refurbished and restarted the Waterfront Red Car Line, a 1.5-mile stretch, for $10 million (but that’s LA money). Fort Collins, Colorado, rebuilt a 1.5-mile track for about $2.5 million in 1984.

Issaquah and Fort Collins are probably closer to the Narrow Gauge–model here in Portland, mostly tourist attractions, but both service commercial and retail areas, which the Narrow Gauge, though very cool in its authentic own right, can’t really do.

So, say we need to come up with $4 million to get this off the ground, and then have to charge about $1 a ride (same fare as the bus) to make sure it pays for itself. I’d pay a buck a ride, and you good citizens of Portland just authorized a $4 million bond for the library — what’s another $4 million when we’re already carrying about $248 million in city debt? There’s every reason to believe, too, that the economic impact of the light rail would more than compensate for the initial investment (that might be glossing over matters a bit), plus think of all the initial construction jobs.

With the planned Bayside train station to service the Downeaster in 2007, the new light rail — let’s call it the Connector — would alleviate the biggest complaint about the Downeaster: that it doesn’t actually go to Portland. People could hop off one train, hop on another, and quickly be shopping their addled Masshole brains out.

The only people who would complain about that are those who run the mall, and we’ve got a plan for that monstrosity’s demolition coming next Ideas Issue.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com