Changes in D.C. could brighten streetcar plans

Oregon leaders are attempting to rewrite rules and rescind an order by former President Bush that impact streetcar funding

By Lee van der Voo

The Lake Oswego Review, Jan 29, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (7 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP FILE PHOTO

The Portland streetcars are not favored by federal transportation officials yet Earl Blumenauer may submit a special bill to fund them. The streetcar has extended to the southern area of South Waterfront.

Oregon’s elected leaders are pushing the federal government to drop a Bush Administration edict that crimped funding for area streetcars.

They are backed by a local coalition that wants new rules in effect for streetcar projects — rules that could give a proposed streetcar link between Portland and Lake Oswego a shot in the arm.

The coalition — which includes TriMet, Lake Oswego, Metro, Portland and Clackamas County — is riding on the coattails of U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., both streetcar supporters, who are currently working to rewrite rules in two transportation programs to pump cash into streetcar projects.

The programs are part of the Community Streetcar Development and Revitalization Act, created in 2002 and authored by Blumenauer. Called Small Starts and New Starts, they carve out federal dollars for new transit projects and were intended to operate as streetcar-funding tools.

But streetcar supporters say the Bush Administration’s lack of enthusiasm for streetcars has hampered the programs’ ability to perform.

An administrative order drafted in 2005 effectively gutted the act, asking the Federal Transportation Administration to heavily weigh speed while setting funding priorities for new transit. Four years later, neither Small Starts nor New Starts has ever funded a streetcar. Much of the programs’ money has instead been used for buses.

In a letter dated Jan. 21, Oregon’s elected leaders asked U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to rescind the four-year-old order, hoping to put Small Starts and New Starts back on track.

Should LaHood comply, the new administrative stance could combine with the proposed rewrite of Small Starts and New Starts rules to make streetcars a federal priority through 2015.

The rewrite of the programs’ rules, if approved, would be rolled into a federal transportation reauthorization bill now being drafted by a Congressional subcommittee chaired by DeFazio. The bill sets transit priorities every six years.

The potential success of either effort has local leaders poised to see quick funding for the Portland Streetcar’s East Side Loop.

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