Spokane embarks on streetcar study

It’s the streetcar some desire.

As currently envisioned, its shiny track would run from the Riverpoint campus through downtown Spokane, over the Spokane River via Riverfront Park, past the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, over to the Spokane County Courthouse and back again. All in 10 to 13 minutes.

For the past year, the Downtown Spokane Partnership, Spokane Transit Authority and Spokane Regional Transportation Council have been studying the possibility of a streetcar system, looking for the best route and determining how much it would cost to build and operate.

The “initial segment,” as it’s called by transportation planners, would run for about two miles, for the most part along city streets, which it would share with vehicle traffic. It would cost about $47 million to build and another $1.6 million a year to operate and maintain.

Local workers and shoppers would be just as likely to use a downtown streetcar as visiting conventioneers and tourists, said Glenn Miles, transportation manager for the Spokane Regional Transportation Council.

It’s a good solution for people traveling within densely packed activity centers, backers say. Rather than parking at one location and then driving a half-mile to another spot and parking again, people could leave their vehicles in one location and use the streetcar to run their errands.

Who might pay for a streetcar has yet to be determined.

“We haven’t got that chapter yet,” said Miles.

Downtown business owners who would benefit from the trolley would likely be asked to pitch in, said Mary Anne Ulik, operations director for the Downtown Spokane Partnership.

Ulik and Miles stressed that final decisions on whether to build a streetcar system and exactly where that system would run are still a ways down the road. It could be moved onto different streets entirely.

The proposed route doesn’t connect directly with STA’s bus plaza or the Spokane Convention Center.

“Off the top of my head, I think it’s something convention-goers would take advantage of,” said Convention Center and Opera House General Manager Johnna Boxley when she learned of the streetcar study. “I really don’t think walking a block would make much difference.”

The group studying the issue also suggested other areas that a streetcar system could serve after the first segment is established, including Gonzaga University, Browne’s Addition, the “Summit” property north of the Spokane River and Spokane’s South Hill medical community.

Some places could be more easily reached than others.

Steep grades could spell trouble for streetcars headed toward Deaconess and Sacred Heart medical centers, said Ulik.

STA currently operates a bus shuttle between downtown and the hospitals. So why can’t a less expensive bus shuttle be used as a downtown people-mover instead of a streetcar?

STA Planner Ryan Stewart said a streetcar offers two advantages buses can’t: a permanence that could spur economic development and a cachet that even STA’s trolley replicas have been unable to attain.

“They’re still viewed by many as just a bus,” said Stewart.

And for some people, buses just aren’t desirable.