Posted on 04/14/2017 1:32:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Mayor de Blasio's developer-backed Brooklyn-Queens streetcar project may not pay for itself as he has promised it will, according to a draft memo prepared for Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and obtained by reporters.
The 16-mile BQX streetcar line from Sunset Park to Astoria is premised on the idea that building the streetcar line will boost property values, prompt more construction, and create jobs along the line, which will in turn generate enough tax revenue to cover $2.5 billion in bonds used to build the thing. However, since de Blasio announced the project in 2016, development and tax experts have pointed out that this may not work, in part because real estate values along the northern Brooklyn and western Queens waterfronts have already skyrocketed without a streetcar, and are already largely served by transit. The city Economic Development Corporation's own study on the issue found that waterfront property values would rise with or without the BQX. The million (billion?)-dollar question is whether they would rise enough to cover the huge cost of the slow-moving trolley system.
The draft memo from the BQX Project Team to Glen, dated February 10th, cites "several serious challenges" with pulling off the streetcar, including, "Value capture not providing significant revenue to fund the entire project as originally stated." (Value capture is the idea of harnessing increased tax revenues.)
The memo also notes that the time and cost of relocating utilities along the route is the most expensive piece of the project, and "has the possibility to make the project unaffordable and render implementation timelines unfeasible."
The memo lays out three options in terms of how quickly to proceed with the project, including a "Red Light" approach that would put it off by a year and a half to further assess the details. It also suggests including in the environmental impact statement a look at whether it might make more sense to create a rail-free bus-rapid-transit route instead.
"We think that kicks the legs out from under the whole premise," Jon Orcutt, director of advocacy at Transit Center and a former Department of Transportation official, told the Daily News. "If these doubts bear out, the mayor should give us all a break and cancel the project."
The Mayor's Office said that's not all she wrote.
"This is as nitty-gritty a study as anyone can do," Mayor's Office spokeswoman Melissa Grace wrote in an emailed statement. "We’re costing out the price of moving specific water mains, and estimating tax revenue from individual lots along the route. The numbers change constantly, and that study has to be completed so we can move ahead. The project will improve transportation for hundreds of thousands of people, and we continue to work to move it forward."
The draft memo indicated that a projection of the tax base funding was supposed to be completed in February. Grace said the value-capture analysis is ongoing.
The memo states that the streetcar poses the "likely need for the use of some city capital," and will likely require an initial commitment of $58.5 million to get going next year, with ground being broken in 2019 under the quickest scenario. The front-end costs will be lower if the project is delayed, but the overall cost will be an additional $100 million for each year it's pushed back, according to the missive's authors.
The peculiar transportation project would be separate from the MTA system and parallel existing bus and subway routes, and MetroCard transfers are not guaranteed to be part of it. Over half of its route is in a floodplain, and nearly a quarter of it is in an area susceptible to more severe flooding due to storm surges, according to reporting by the Village Voice's handsome city editor Christopher Robbins.
The only way that the streetcar proposal makes some sense is if one considers that seven developers with projects along the proposed route contributed a total of $245,000 to de Blasio's nonprofit Campaign for One New York, which he shuttered last year during a federal investigations into possible play-to-play schemes. That investigation concluded in March without charges of criminal wrongdoing.
The last paragraph tells the real story, in a nutshell.
Sue De Blasio to recover the shortfall. He made the call that benefited his pals.
That’s like asking Hillary to get that uranium back.
BdB should offer a 99 year concession to private industry to build & operate the BQX streetcar.
Why not just hav more MTA buses fill any transit needs there? A bunch of buses won’t cost $2.5 billion. Oh wait, because this is not filling needs, it’s a boondoggle project for the Mayor and his rich donors.
I don’t get it. If that area is already well served by mass transit, why do this at all??
It’s well served if you are going into Manhattan. If you’re just trying to get from Brooklyn to Queens, then your choices are limited.
Basically one nearly useless line that ends in Long Island city with one transfer option. You could of course drive, but the traffic going between Brooklyn and Queens is murder due to the bridges.
Not saying that this is the solution though. But the city sure hasn’t accommodated the growth here with appropriate infrastructure. Brooklyn and Queens are where the explosive growth is happening.
if the private sector wants to build a d operate then why stop them ?
the key is get government out of the way
I don’t know mass transit history too well, but from what I’ve heard, many cities had privately owned bus and streetcar systems and subways at one time. Why that changed is unknown to me. Perhaps someone decided government should oversee public transit?? Perhaps some systems lost money and would have gone under if not for govt subsidy??
Nearly all mass transit systems in the US were built and operated by private enterprise as highly profitable businesses. During the heyday of extreme socialist ideas in the USA 1935-55 most cities nationalized or drove the systems into bankruptcy.
The idea that mass transit is a money losing operation requiring taxpayer subsidy came about only after city governments took over.
As progressive Gilded Age city governments were wont to do, they imposed all kinds of requirements on private streetcar operations in exchange for their franchise to operate...they had to maintain the streets they ran in; they had to keep them swept and plowed and watered (in an era before paving and lots of horses, um “leaving their mark”); they had to pay for street lighting along the streets they used, and in some cases had to provide street lighting for as many as three blocks on either side of those streets; they had to pay a property tax on every line pole, and/or every city pole from which they hung their overhead wires. And this was all on top of paying to maintain their tracks, overhead wires, span wires, feeder cables, substations...you get the picture. And when local political issues such as unionization came along, guess which side the politicians supported.
This heavy financial burden combined with major drops in ridership during the Depression to drive many municipal streetcar operations into bankruptcy. Frequently, by the time cities took over public transit, it was a case of “take it over NOW, or we go bankrupt and shut down and your sprawling, transit-dependent city has NOTHING”.
There’s a long-running urban myth that General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tire conspired to buy up American’s trolley lines and convert them to buses. They didn’t need to conspire or commit any illegal actions to make that happen...after fifteen years of deferred maintenance on account of the Depression and WW2, along with 5-6 years of overdrive-level service during the war years, America’s streetcar companies were faced with having to rebuild their entire physical plant all at once...no gradual replacement as would normally be projected. With that specter hanging over their heads, along with the prospect of shedding all those legacy costs thanks to giving up track and other physical plant (and throwing that burden back on the taxpayer)...who in their right mind would have chosen any option other than buying buses?
In an ironic touch, the predecessor (private) streetcar company “Brooklyn & Queens Transit” was actually FORCED by mayor Fiorello La Guardia to convert its routes to buses after WW2, or lose its franchise.
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