Arlington County is planning to spend millions of dollars on a nostalgic-looking streetcar that will cause massive traffic backups on Columbia Pike and help drive out the small businesses and moderately priced apartments that give the Pike its funky urban charm.
The trolley, which will run down Columbia Pike from Pentagon City and then veer over to Skyline Mall on Route 7, will supposedly reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality while it spurs economic development. But not even some Arlington environmentalists are buying it.
Last year, during his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Barbara Favola on the County Board, Green Party candidate John Reeder challenged Favola’s assertion that the trolley would save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Reeder cited a 2007 study by M.J. Bradley & Associates that found that fully loaded, natural gas-powered buses actually use less BTUs per passenger mile than light rail.
Add up the electricity to power the trolley, which will come from a coal-fired power plant in Wise, Virginia and the energy required to bury utility lines, add rails, resurface the road and install overhead copper power lines, and Favola’s assertion that the trolley will consume less energy is “dubious,” Reeder told members of the Arlington Civic Federation during a debate. Dubious indeed.
Favola and other members of the Board often point to the light rail system in Portland, Oregon to justify their multi-million trolley folly. But according to a new study by transportation analyst Wendell Cox, Portland’s highly touted streetcar system is largely a flop.
Despite opening two additional light rail lines since 2000, the percentage of transit riders in Portland actually fell 28 percent from a 9.5 percent share in 1980 to just 6.8 percent in 2007 – while annual transit costs tripled.
Greenhouse gas emissions in Portland were reduced by a miniscule 0.6 percent annually over 22 years – at a whopping cost of $5,500 per ton. Due to increased traffic congestion largely due to the diversion of federal highway money to mass transit, Portland drivers now waste 18 million more gallons of gas while stuck in traffic than they did in 1985, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. Cox points out that this is “four times the estimated reduction in GHG emissions that was assumed to have occurred from the increase in transit ridership.”
Think Arlington’s new streetcar will do any better? Consider the fact that it will needlessly replace 11 Metrobuses on one of the most popular and heavily used bus routes in the D.C. area and go about 12 miles per hour, setting new standards for slow.
Expect gridlock conditions when the inevitable trolley breakdown occurs. Meanwhile, drivers will be caught in extended backups as they inch their way down a much narrower Columbia Pike, wasting both time and gasoline.
Joseph Warren, a retired transportation economist at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a member of the Arlington Transit Advisory Committee that voted against the streetcar proposal, noted that a 2005 consultant’s study violated professional evaluation standards by including $30 million in unnecessary streetscape and utility costs in a deliberate attempt to torpedo a bus rapid transit option – which would move the same number of people at a quarter of the cost.
Thanks to the backers of the Columbia Pike trolley folly, Arlington residents will wind up with higher energy costs, more greenhouse gas emissions, longer commutes, and more traffic congestion – all for the low, low price of $150 million.
It’s also a perfect example of the new Arlington Way.
Barbara F. Hollingworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
