Listen up, international blog audience. This is a three part post. Part one is Prof. Heywood Sanders's SA Current article about the streetcar plan. Part two is my e-mail to Prof. Sanders. Part three is Prof. Sanders's "response" to my email. I hope you don't like straight forward responses. Prof. Sanders must have his eye on Lamar Smith's House seat.
For the record, luridtransom is FOR the Broadway Streetcar.
http://sacurrent.com/arts/visualart/city-streetcar-plans-represent-another-developer-fueled-heist-1.1271883
City streetcar plans represent another developer-fueled heist
By Heywood Sanders
Published: February 15, 2012
"GO BY STREETCAR" reads the big neon sign on the Streetcar Lofts in Portland's Pearl District. And in Portland, you can go by streetcar. From the busy, active downtown complete with Macy's, Nordstrom's, H&M, and host of other stores and businesses leading into the booming Pearl District with its lofts and townhouses.
You can go by streetcar right to the Piazza Italia restaurant (been there) and Cool Moon Ice Cream down the block (it's great!). The streetcar can take you to the Whole Foods Market in the Pearl District. You can go right past Powell's "City of Books" Bookstore, covering an entire square block with more than a million new and used books on the shelves. You can go back to downtown, past the public library, the Portland Art Museum, and to Portland State University. It serves lots of places, places where Portlanders naturally go.
Soon, if our city and county politicos have their way, you'll be able to go by streetcar in San Antonio too. And where will we be able to go?
You'll be able to go from the Alamo up Broadway to the Pearl Brewery, right past all the now-shuttered car dealerships. You'll be able to go by thriving Rivercenter Mall, through HemisFair Park, and to the Robert Thompson Transit Center next to the Alamodome. Or you could go through downtown, all the way to the new West Side multimodal transit center in Cattleman's Square.
The promises sound great. The San Antonio Express-News offered the editorial judgment that the streetcar could be "a game-changer that sparks inner-city growth and slows the culture of sprawl."
Is that "inner-city growth" around Pearl Brewery and the Alamodome? Are we slowing a "culture of sprawl" along Broadway? I don't think so. All those with jobs downtown, who live along Broadway or in HemisFair Park, raise your hands.
Or how about this assessment of the coming West Side multimodal center offered by Henry Muñoz, chair of the VIA board: "This facility will not only enhance the visual appeal of the immediate vicinity, it will also result in increased development and redevelopment."
That's the reality of the planned streetcar "system" as well as the multimodal center. It's about development. That in turn means land and building. And it's not really about serving the transportation needs of San Antonians, even those in the inner city.
It's about moving tourists, getting them quickly to Pearl Brewery and to a host of development projects planned along Broadway and in HemisFair Park. It's about making new apartments and lofts more saleable. And it's truly about making some developers real money.
We've long worshipped development in San Antonio. Around downtown that's meant trying to lure tourists to projects like the "Pink Elephant" of Fiesta Plaza, where the downtown campus of UTSA now stands. Or putting brick sidewalks and tall palm trees along Houston Street in the belief that "major retailers" like Barnes & Noble or Bath & Body Works would soon follow. Even building a glass-enclosed elevator from the Riverwalk to a trolley stop near Alamo Plaza to lure tourists to the "$52 million entertainment and retail complex" at Sunset Station on the Near East Side.
Somehow these "development" things didn't work out. I suspect it will be much the same fate for the "game changer" of the streetcar and multimodal center. A big part of the problem is that we're not Portland. Unlike that Oregon city, we've spent decades supporting and subsidizing outlying growth. Our big department stores aren't downtown, they're at La Cantera. Our new jobs and employment centers aren't downtown either. Instead they stretch out I-10, I-35, and 281.
The streetcar works in Portland because it serves places Portlanders want to go, places that were already hubs of activity. It built on Portland's planned approach to growth and transportation.
If we're really serious about dealing with sprawl, or improving the environment, or getting people out of their cars, we need a set of projects and policies that work together.
In San Antonio, the streetcar smacks of yet another "deal," one designed and engineered by the builders and developers. Perhaps it will work for them, although I doubt it. It certainly won't work for the rest of us.
Heywood Sanders teaches public administration and public policy at UTSA. His column appears monthly.
-----Original Message-----
From: luridtransom
Sent: Tue 2/21/2012 1:01 PM
To: Heywood Sanders
Subject: Streetcar.
Mr. Sanders:
I read your column in the SA Current about streetcars. I don't disagree with your premise that the streetcar is about development, not solving transportation needs. Still, I'm for the streetcar. I'm for development downtown and along broadway. So, the streetcar works for me.
I take it you're against the streetcar. What kind of "projects and policies that work together" would you rather see?
Thanks for the interesting column!
Regards,
luridtransom
From: Heywood Sanders
To: luridtransom
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 12:48 PM
Subject: RE: Streetcar.
luridtransom,
It's not a matter of being "for" or "against" the streetcar.
Just as it was not, some years ago, a matter of being "for" or "against" the Alamodome.
It's a matter of what the larger public purpose is, how the public investment is sold, and what it's likely to do.
I can certainly understand if you'd like to see "development" downtown and along Broadway.
But the real question is whether a streetcar will produce that "development," in the absence of other public policies and planning.
For SA, the simple answer is pretty much no.
Take a look at what is now at Pearl Brewery, and where it came from.
Look at Il Sogno, and Sandbar, and LaGloria and where the used to be.
And note that much of the office activity used to be downtown.
As were many of the events.
And then recognize that there is a difference between "building" and "development"
hs
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