Candidates wary of streetcar


MOVING FORWARD? Despite gaining a $13 million federal grant, it is unclear if Providence is any closer to building a streetcar system such as shown in this rendering of the corner of Washington and Empire streets. In addition, none of the candidates for mayor of Providence or governor of Rhode Island seem anxious to weigh in the topic. / COURTESY STUDIO AMDT
MOVING FORWARD? Despite gaining a $13 million federal grant, it is unclear if Providence is any closer to building a streetcar system such as shown in this rendering of the corner of Washington and Empire streets. In addition, none of the candidates for mayor of Providence or governor of Rhode Island seem anxious to weigh in the topic. / COURTESY STUDIO AMDT

Even a $13 million federal grant hasn’t convinced candidates for governor or mayor of Providence to embrace a proposed city streetcar system.
Pitched as a 6,000-job, economic-development catalyst, the streetcar has been pushed by Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and former mayor and now-U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline. With the grant award, it is now supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Yet neither one of the major-party candidates in the governor’s race, Republican Allan Fung and Democrat Gina M. Raimondo, have come out in favor of the project, which would connect College Hill with downtown and Rhode Island Hospital.
In an email response to questions about whether Raimondo supported the current streetcar plan, would consider a larger state investment or would be reluctant to pass up $13 million in federal money, campaign spokesman Nicole Kayner declined to even make reference to the project.
“Gina is committed to reliable, affordable and cost-effective public transportation options for Rhode Islanders,” Kayner wrote. “As governor, she will take a comprehensive approach to our state’s public transportation infrastructure and work with our cities and towns to encourage more transit-oriented development. This includes working with Providence to determine the best course of action for transit plans.”
In a summer interview on his economic plan, Fung was uninterested in lending state support for a streetcar and spokesman Robert Coupe last week said, while the candidate is not opposed to the project, the federal grant does not make it any more of a priority.
Although more responsive to the idea than those running for governor, the main contenders for Providence mayor, independent Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr., and Democrat Jorge Elorza, also appear wary of being attached to it.
“I love the vision of a streetcar in Providence,” Elorza said in an email. “What’s important, however, is to have a viable plan with financing in place. There are still a lot of questions to be answered before we move forward.”
Cianci, whose campaign is built on the success of large cityscape projects completed during his previous two terms as mayor, in a phone interview called the streetcar “interesting,” but said he had concerns about whether its benefits outweigh the cost.
“I love big projects, but you need to be able to pay for them,” Cianci said. “We should look at it, but should we commit to it? I don’t think the people can afford that now, and there would be better priorities.” Republican candidate Dr. Daniel Harrop in an email said the federal grant is far too small to support the streetcar project. He said he would not put any city money into a streetcar he describes as an “intramodal project” between Brown University campuses.
So where does that leave the streetcar, which would be the first Rhode Island project to win a federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant and not go forward?
Providence Director of Long-Range Planning Bonnie Nickerson said the city is considering breaking the project down into a smaller first phase – such as Thayer Street to a to-be-determined spot in the Knowledge District – to reduce the cost of getting started. Better integrating it with a proposed RIPTA bus hub at the Amtrak station, a project that also received a TIGER grant, is another goal.
Nickerson said during the next two months, the city will gather project supporters and hire an engineering consultant to evaluate funding sources and flesh out the design in a potentially less-expensive way. A funding source for the consultant has not been identified.
The most recent streetcar funding plan, released by city planners this past spring, included a $39 million federal grant, covering 34 percent of the total project costs.
The smaller $13 million grant leaves a $26 million funding gap that rises to $29.43 million when combined with a $3.43 million increase in the most recent estimated cost. According to the announcement of the $13 million grant, the streetcar is now estimated to cost $117.8 million instead of $114.37 million.
This was the second year the city applied for a TIGER grant for the streetcar and, realizing that the federal government has been awarding a greater number of smaller grants, reduced its request from $39 million to $29 million, according to Nickerson.
Paired with the federal grant, which was to cover 34 percent of the streetcar’s cost, the primary source of funds in the city’s plan was a $54 million tax-increment financing arrangement.
Another 13 percent, or $15 million, would have come from R.I. Capital Plan funds, with 5 percent, or $6 million, coming from RIPTA and 1 percent through a R.I. Department of Transportation land transfer. Annual operating costs were estimated at $3.13 million.
Covering 2.5 miles, the proposed streetcar route would have one end starting at Rhode Island Hospital, then move north underneath Interstate 95, through the Knowledge District into downtown, before turning east on Washington Street, through Kennedy Plaza and into RIPTA’s East Side tunnel. Its terminus would be at the current RIPTA Thayer Street bus stop. It would have 13 stops, with short-term plans for a spur to the Providence Amtrak station and a Dudley Street extension from the hospital to Prairie Avenue.
City planners see the system one day growing north toward Pawtucket, west toward Olneyville in Providence and south toward Roger Williams Park.
They estimate the streetcar corridor is home to 3 million square feet of vacant or underutilized land and the project would eventually create $1.1 billion in new property value.
But critics point to these projections as proof the streetcar is more a real estate play than transit project.
They note than the 1,800-foot East Side tunnel is the only section of the proposed route separated from normal street traffic, meaning that it won’t be any faster than existing buses and could rival walking times.
One potential way to close the funding gap would be to expand the tax-increment financing plan, the only piece of the funding mix the city controls.
Under a TIF, the city would freeze the taxes going into its general fund from a swath of land surrounding the streetcar, then dedicate any new revenue from increased value there to pay off municipal bonds floated to build the streetcar.
TIF advocates say they provide a way to finance projects that would be otherwise unaffordable without burdening taxpayers. The new development paying for the bonds would not have occurred without them, they say.
Critics of the method say there’s little way to prove what would or would not have been built without a particular project, and TIFs capture tax revenue that would otherwise go into general city services.
In the case of the Providence streetcar, the proposed $54 million TIF would freeze general-fund revenue within a 0.25-mile-wide corridor running through downtown and the Knowledge District.
The TIF could also inhibit the city’s ability to provide property-tax incentives for development, now routine policy.
Both Elorza and Cianci said they are comfortable with using a TIF, if the underlying project it’s paying for is proven worthy of it or if it’s a smaller piece of a larger financing plan.
“I’m open to considering TIFs to provide the city’s portion, but it can’t be the lion’s share of the budget,” Elorza wrote. “The priorities need to be federal money and other outside funding.” •

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