I was thrilled to see today that Chatham Area Transit has applied for a federal grant to expand the area currently covered by the streetcar on River Street. And I was thrilled to find out that there is considerable enthusiasm for the idea of an expanded network.
We are not talking about any immediate plans here, but about a limited federal grant that we may or may not get. Further down in this post, I include a purely speculative map of some possible routes that I imagine if we ever had the funding to create a serious network.
For a variety of reasons, streetcars attract riders who don’t typically take buses. Streetcar networks, in part because of their permanence in the streetscape, tend to encourage investment nearby.
From the Savannah Morning News’ CAT hopes streetcar project will spark growth:
A response to a request for $43 million in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant money should come by September. A match in local funding would be needed to fund the remainder of the estimated $59 million project, which is phase one of a larger plan.
Money being used in other road improvement projects — such as the President Street improvement project — could count toward local matching funds, said CAT Executive Director Chadwick Reese. […]
CAT board member Bill Broker said it’s important for the project to touch on neighborhoods in need of redevelopment on the west and east side of downtown.
Besides the potential to spur growth in economically depressed areas of town, streetcars are also popular with middle-income riders, which could boost CAT’s ridership, said Reese.
But the main goal of extending the streetcar system on River Street is to connect it to the newly remodeled transit center on Oglethorpe Avenue at Fahm Street, which is expected to be completed in September.
Later, Broker is quoted again: “Even if this goes nowhere, I think it is really important that we’ve at least thrown it out there for people to start talking about it.”
Let’s be honest: $43 million is a lot of money, but it won’t add up to that large of an extension of the River Street line, which right now is pretty much just used by tourists going from one end of the street to the other. But also keep in mind that $43 million won’t do much when it comes to any kind of road construction. The final phase of the Truman Parkway is costing about $68 million, for example.
But it can’t hurt to think about a long term plan, as Broker suggests.
It would be really obvious to consider eventually having a streetcar line or two that connects residents with a variety of jobs and services. Depending on how the streetcar is integrated into the roadway, we could run them almost anywhere. On the east side of town, it seems to me that Waters (or a nearby block) and Skidaway would be good spots. Waters obviously runs out to the hospitals, past Daffin Park, alongside commercial areas in need of revitalization and others that aren’t, etc. A line out Skidaway at least as far as Savannah State would serve some obvious goals too.
I could even imagine a line through the center of town along either Habersham or Abercorn, although I envision it skirting most of the Historic District. A line on MLK and Montgomery would not only run past the visitors’ center, hotels, and the bus station, but could also connect all the way to Hunter. A streetcar line along either West Bay or West Gwinnett would almost certainly help spur development along those corridors.
The following map is pure fantasy. The possible spurs were created by me using Photoshop. Given the relatively small area involved, it would likely be impractical to have this many lines.
Possible streetcar spurs in Savannah — a purely speculative map
So let’s get people talking about this now, with the understanding that we’re creating a vision that would likely take a generation or two — or three — to have any chance of becoming reality.