goat314 wrote:
Everyone is being very pessimistic about this project.
Whether it serves a real transportation purpose is irrelevant, this trolley will be a success and further solidify the Loop as a top St. Louis destination (all while sparking more urban development on Delmar and adjacent streets).
I think people need to stop looking at this as a serious attempt at a transit project, but instead a serious attempt at furthering the development of a very popular urban area.
If this becomes a big success (which I believe it will, just because of its development potential and novelty) other areas will seriously start looking at trolleys as a means to redevelop and stabilize areas like Soulard, Benton Park, Grand Center, Downtown etc.
This is known as the "ostrich" approach to planning/development. If some private developer wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to dig up Delmar and put down a street car line, that's their perogative. However, the second you start using PUBLIC MONEY, you absolutely have to look at the fiscal feasibility of the project. This isn't some beautification project. No one's talking about planting trees or changing sidewalk pavements, they're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars for what amounts to a glorified moving walkway.
If you consider the length of the loop from City Hall to the Metrolink Station, that's a distance of 1.1 miles, approximately a 20 minute walk from end to end. If you want to consider a future loop extends to Debalievere, then it becomes 1.6 miles - about a 30 minute walk. I ask - who would use the trolley? If it's free and the weather is lousy, some people would. If it's a nice day and costs money, no one will use it. What's the point? The walk from the station isn't oppressive, and even if people felt it was, there's bus connections that run right down delmar.
There's a perfect example of this at a place I just recently visited in LA called the Grove. It's a massive shopping complex with a farmer's market/food court, and it has a trolley. It runs the length of the development, carrying families and tourists. It's nice, looks gimmicky, and it is. I dont' know if it costs anything to ride, but it looks like old people and young families were enjoying the novelty of it. Again though - this is a private development. Public money (to my knowledge) wasn't used to build it.
You absolutely have to do a cost/benefit analysis of this thing when using public money. Are the potential improvements in property value/increased developments going to outweigh the massive costs of the project? What about the opportunity costs? Are the hundreds of millions needed to build this thing better spent on, oh, I dunno - SCHOOLS? Streetscape improvements? Branding initiatives, etc.
If Joe Edwards wants to come and put all his own money up for it, I say let him do what he wants, it's his money. The second they start asking for public financing, due dilligence is a necessity.
The Delmar Trolley project is fantastic. It doesn't involve the CWE nor should it. It's purpose to make the Loop a national destination; to extend and develop the Loop all the way to DeBaliviere; and to connect the Loop with all of the wonders of Forest Park. It's not transportation; it's an environment in motion. Fantastic I tell ya. 
