Streetcars

The voting rights of a single Cincinnati resident took center stage this week in the never-ending drama over the city's under-construction streetcar.

The epic political grudge match over the Cincinnati streetcar never ends.

In a new report making the rounds this week, “More Development For Your Transit Dollar: An Analysis of 21 North American Transit Corridors,” the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy does two things.

If everything goes according to plan this election, Kansas City will be on track to build its first streetcar in under five years, from conceptual planning to first boarding. Maybe more impressive still, this relatively sprawling Midwestern town is this close to getting its first rail transportation without even a mild political dustup.

Remember the good old days when congressmen used to try to insert riders into spending packages to win money for a project in their home districts?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is no friend to rail transportation. He won the governorship based on the rallying cry of "No Train," a concise summary of his position on the planned upgrade to the Milwaukee-to-Madison line. And we all know how that one ended.

Streetcars are back, and Tucson, Arizona is leading the way.

Back in December, Clackamas, Oregon-based United Streetcar won an $8.7 million contract to build two vehicles for Washington, DC’s streetcar system, currently under construction. The timing could not have been better for House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall, who had just introduced legislation to tighten “Buy America” requirements on future transportation investments. Rahall had even invited United Streetcar’s president, Chandra Brown, to speak at the press conference, to demonstrate how Buy America can benefit and revive the domestic rolling stock manufacturing industry.

Yesterday, we started our year-end 2011 round-up. We lamented transit cuts in places where transit is more important than ever, cheered the successful ballot initiatives that will fund transportation lifelines, took a moment to explore the nuances of some difficult issues, and called out Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin for some hare-brained ideas about the best way to spend money.