The Antiplanner’s friend, Benita Dodd, reviews the Atlanta streetcar on the second anniversary of its inaugural run. It was supposed to cost $72 million to build. It cost $97 million. It was supposed to cost $1.7 million a year to operate. It actually costs $5.3 million.
It was projected to earn $420,000 a year in fares. During its first year, it earned nothing because it was free. In the second year, the city began charging $1 a ride, and it earned under $200,000. When it was free, it carried 2,600 riders a day. After they began charging, ridership fell to less than 1,500 a day, less than half the projected number.
It normally runs on Saturday nights until 1 am. Last Saturday, “to accommodate large crowds” for New Years Eve, the city stopped running it at 4:30 pm. (Despite the absurdity of the claim that not running the streetcar will accommodate large crowds, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reprinted the city’s press release word for word.) Naturally, after all these great successes, the city wants to build 22 more miles of streetcar lines.
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As the Antiplanner has noted before, streetcars are an intelligence test. Next year, the basic technology will be 130 years old. Like the streetcars of 1888, the ones being built today are slow, expensive, and have low capacities for moving people. Anyone who thinks that streetcars are the solution to any urban problem (other than “I just found $100 million; what do I spend it on?”) lacks the intelligence to have anything to do with leading or running a city.
“to accommodate large crowds” for New Years Eve, the city stopped running it at 4:30 pm. ”
Maybe one of two reasons:
(a) they are capable of handling 1,500 people a day and a large crowd would show how useless the system is, or
(b) they were afraid no one would show up and expose the lack of need for the system as a whole.
At $5.3 million in costs and $200,00 in revenue, we can suggest a great way to save Atlanta $5 million a year. Shut it down.
Of course, they would never shut it down because the streetcar is critical to the new intown gentrification darling, the Beltline. And, thanks to the new sales tax hike, they will have an influx of cash to make up the operational shortfall. Will it be enough? Probably not, and no doubt they will go back to the well with another SPLOST in a few years when people are still complaining about not being able to ride a train to Emory (but driving there all the same)