Portland: With the objective of repopulating the city’s older neighborhoods by making them more car-light, electric streetcars are helping to connect work, housing, entertainment, and recreation so that a personal motor vehicle is no longer needed. [Photo: L. Henry]

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by John Schneider

Ask yourself: What problem do you want to solve? And is the problem worth solving, or able to be solved, given the resources available to your community?

It would be nice to rid your town of congested highways, but the truth is, as you convert motorists into transit riders, other motorists are quick to fill up the empty roadway, so you never really get ahead in this game. A broad regional system of frequent, car-competitive transit designed to eliminate highway congestion will be very expensive to build and operate.

If you are focused on improving mobility in a particular corridor because of increasing jobs or strong housing growth in the corridor, then you need to consider the level of transit service that’s appropriate. If most trips in the corridor are short ones, adding buses may serve to meet the demand. If trips are longer, and if there is steady demand for travel many hours a day, rail solutions may be more appropriate.

Much of the recent interest in transit technologies is associated with the repopulation of dense city neighborhoods. This is happening in two out of three regions in the U.S. — even if the core city as a whole is losing population. So if your objective is to repopulate older neighborhoods by making them more car-light, electric streetcars can connect work, housing, entertainment and recreation so that a car is no longer needed in these neighborhoods. The money saved can be redirected toward better housing, better health care or for a child’s education. This sort of turns the transit for mobility argument inside out: less mobility can often mean greater savings and greater prosperity.

Once your objective is clear, make sure it is in sync with the aspirations of your city’s political leadership and leading institutions. Show them how achieving your objective can make their jobs easier.

Finally, can your objective be achieved in other ways? This is a very important question to answer. Your critics will always be insisting that other solutions are better and cheaper! You need to be able to show them they are wrong.