On Where We Live's "Transforming Transportation" episode this morning, Toni Gold of the Project for Public Spaces invoked my second-favorite transit nerd factoid when talking about installing a streetcar line on Main Street in Hartford. It concerns the stunning increase in real estate value and development that was seemingly triggered by the installation of a downtown streetcar line in Portland, Oregon, at the outset of the last decade.

It's in the billions. By 2006, only five years after the first section of the line opened, Portland had experienced more than $2.28 billion in real estate investment two blocks or less from the line, according to a report prepared at the time by city officials and the streetcar system's administration. (The Portland streetcar is separate from the similarly renowned MAX light rail line, and runs in a loop connecting Nob Hill, the Pearl District, and Portland State University.)

I think Gold used an even bigger number for the current total investment - $3 billion - and even given the downturn in real estate value nationwide, the transit officials out there I talked to last year were adamant that the line has been and would be a great economic development tool. And as Gold rightly pointed out, the point of this project was economic development even more than it was transportation. (A Portland transit executive cited this as the crucial difference between the city-run streetcar system and TriMet, the county agency that runs the MAX lines and buses. The former's primary aim was to stimulate development, especially in brownfield areas the city was trying to resurrect. The latter is first and foremost for moving people around.)

But that big number is but a close second to my favorite factoid: how much it cost to do that project.

A 2006 report pegs the combined cost of installing the initial 2.4-mile first phase and the first extension of the line at $88.7 million.

So let's review. Seeking to remake an urban brownfield and stimulate adjacent development, Portland officials greenlighted private construction of new, dense housing development and put public money into a showpiece transit line to move people through the downtown district where they hoped to help existing business. They had spent about $90 million through 2006 (if memory serves, there's been more extension that will drive that number up somewhat) and saw billions in associated investment along the line they were trying to improve.

Now, in an admittedly apples/oranges comparison, consider a recent Connecticut economic development project. How about the state/Pfizer Fort Trumbull redevelopment, a Robert Moses-y project brought to you by people who don't think they think like Robert Moses. For more than $160 million (probably much more, actually) the state cut temporary tax breaks to Pfizer and poured taxpayer funds into the effort to wipe away rather than reinvigorate a struggling neighborhood and a broad swath of surplus land. The direct spending on the Fort Trumbull project itself (the wink-nudge aspect of Pfizer's enticement deal) is almost exactly the same amount that Portland spent to create a piece of public infrastructure that all its citizens can use, that connects people to facilities they need (a hospital, a university, housing) without requiring them to use their cars for every trip, and that seems to have had a huge beneficial impact on the city's businesses.

This track record is one reason why streetcars don't just appeal to people in Portland, or Earl Blumenauer, or those who roast their own granola, or The Decemberists. (Sleater-Kinney, it should be noted, seem to be MAX fans.) One of the most die-hard proponents of these systems while he lived was Paul Weyrich, a conservative movement godfather and co-founder of The Heritage Foundation.

I don't think a streetcar would have solved New London's problems, nor do I hold out any unrealistic expectations that a tram down the center of Main will turn Hartford into Portland. But you also don't hear many people arguing clearly and loudly that the state shouldn't attempt projects like this that seem to have worked well in other cities -- and that would, even in failing to trigger a land-price surge, at least leave as a relic of all that public spending a public resource, a piece of infrastructure citizens of Hartford or New London or elsewhere could actually use. But tacitly, they're doing just that, by stubbornly refusing to try new strategies, to get creative with public spending in a state where neither party is actually all that eager to turn the cheap bonding faucet off.

So, in the mean time, I guess you in Hartford will always have Front Street. And in New London, we've got 90 acres of granite curbing, fancy streetlights and dirt. You can't ride it much of anywhere, but I hear it's still available, if you know anyone who's looking for that sort of thing.

Update: @rlayman: I totally agree about unrealistic expectations, and as I said, I don't think a streetcar line or BRT line in Hartford or New London would represent a silver bullet. That $2.28 billion will remain an outlier, I'm sure, and I'm not arguing that New London would have seen such a huge swing in its fortunes simply by trading neighborhood demolition for streetcars. And residential density near the downtown -- both new, e.g. Pearl, and existing -- is the biggest difference other than simple size I see between Portland and one of these smaller cities, which have actually been eliminating some of the density they would eventually need to make transit systems more effective. My point is simply that we're actually spending these economic development dollars on the same scale as those being spent in other cities, for many of the same reasons. But citizens here don't see a tangible, usable piece of public infrastructure for their money, something that could provide instantaneous utility to residents and visitors now, while the city keeps one eye on the long-term goal of reversing its economic fortunes and encouraging the regrowth of sections of downtown. And all the more reason to get started soon, the better to eventually reap some of the long-term benefits decades down the road.


(This post dedicated to LM and SM, for taking me to the New York City Transit Museum this weekend and triggering a serious nerd-surge. Also, to Hitchcock.)