City Government

Trolley Open House Not So Open

MEDIA AND PAID TROLLEY PROMOTERS MINGLE AT OPEN HOUSE THAT WASN'T.

MEDIA AND PAID TROLLEY PROMOTERS MINGLE AT OPEN HOUSE THAT WASN'T.

A Thursday event in a vacant downtown store billed as an “Open House” to discuss Team Dave’s Trolley Folly turned out to not be so open.

GUARDIAN reader “Cyclops” made an appearance and asked if the event was to educate people about the proposed trolley. Adam Park, the press secretary for Mayor Dave Bieter confirmed that Cyclops was in the right spot.

When Cyclops politely asked where he could set up to share information with interested citizens, he was told by Park, “This is OUR event. You will have to go outside.”

Rather than assert his right to be inside the event which was produced by a public relations agency paid by by citizens, Cyclops went outside and politely visited with folks and passed out a flyer detailing the info found on the YESTERDAY’S GUARDIAN POST.

Editor Dave Frazier joined Cyclops, a.k.a. Jim Monihan for a while and it amazed us both how few people outwardly favored the trolley and how many flashed us a thumbs up and thanks us for providing the insight to the issue. Most voiced concern about the cost and the way the proposal is being handled without a vote of the public on such a profound project.

Frazier also did a gig discussing the trolley on the KBOI radio “Nate Shelman Show.” Shelman told us the mayor’s office refused to go on the air.

Comments & Discussion

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  1. Blazing Saddle
    Oct 2, 2009, 7:38 am

    I was doing some research on the trolley. More to the point, since the mayor is intent on selling this folly on grounds of stimulating urban development, meaning no ridership studies required, I was searching to see if there were any developers, anywhere, who would not build unless the city, any city, first installed a trolley.

    The answer is yes, I found a few who thought that the success of their low income housing project would be improved with the presence of a trolley. Hmmm, I am not sure turning downtown Boise into a mecca for the urban poor is exactly what the mayor had in mind. As they say, be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

    Anyway, I stumbled across a group in Seattle who is trying, like Boise, to get a trolley underway. Theirs is the South Lake Union Trolley. You got it. They want to initiate, SLUT. (Check it out you can not make this stuff up.)

    In that vein, I hereby christen the soon to be real, Boise Urban Trolley. Let’s hear it for the BUT.

    EDITOR NOTE–And what will you call acrynom for the Terminal for that system?

  2. Marketing Man
    Oct 2, 2009, 8:23 am

    This poses many questions.

    Will the marketing campaign encourage people to: Take a ride on Bieter’s BUT?

    Will they hire Larry Craig as the Spokesperson?

    Will development HInge on the the expansion of Bieter’s BUT? Are we to believe that people desire to live and work closer to Bieter’s BUT rather than further away?

    Will Paul HIller pay national magazines to extol the virtue of our BUT. I can see it now, “According to Fortune Magazine, Boise has a nice BUT.”

    The mind boggles at the possibilities.

  3. Mr. Watcher
    Oct 2, 2009, 8:32 am

    What a farce and do we need to know more to get rid of this mayor, Darth Daver, the black cloud of bad things to come.
    Darth Daver need to have a tattoo on the palm of his hand like the chopper builder Jessie James has that reads, “pay up sucker”.

  4. Oh please gentlemen, what are you, twelve?

    I had a nice chat with a developer last night who has had lots of time on his hands lately. He’s been examining these economic development projects around the country and has yet to find one that has failed. He emphasizes that this is not a transit system and shouldn’t be looked at that way. These have been a boon to every community that has the foresight to put one in. I also appreciate the concentration on planning for urban growth and to not allow our downtown corridor to degrade like in so many western cities. Sprawl is choking us with extra costs and higher taxes. With so many planning conscious people here we should be mindful of that fact. With $40 million in stimulus money we’d be fools to allow this opportunity to pass us by.

    Another focus I have concerns with though is how fat this is going to make CCDC whose purpose is often challenged here. Any thoughts?

  5. Jacks Place
    Oct 2, 2009, 12:08 pm

    Ohh what is Boise coming to. I get what they are trying to acomplish. But downtown Boise reminds me of the whole keeping up with the Jones. Most stores downtown are not making money except for some resturants and bars. And don’t even ask the stores in BODO how they are doing…. But even then, we had our share of closing this last year. I just don’t see downtown Boise following the same paths as our regional neighbors. Yes a free trolley downtown would be nice, but why do we have to start with such a large, go nowhere project? I’m all for public transportation, but let’s bootstrap the sucker and start with wheeled vehicles at a fraction of the cost.

  6. Sisyphus, I believe you will find two things in your research. First,you will find that the other “people movers” have a starting and an ending point. In other words, They go somewhere! What makes our proposed system unique is that is has neither!It comes from nowhere and goes nowhere! Second, I seriously doubt you will find a business that is willing to move their entire operation to Boise,”if they only had a trolley”!
    A business wants people WALKING by their store, not riding by on a trolley!
    And your question about CCDC? They are salivating at the proposeed increase in their footprint to 30th.
    Bieter and four members of the council see themselves as “visionaries”. They have this picture of Boise in their mind 30 years in the future that has mass transit and efficient people movers bring the citizens to their destinations. An admireable vision at the very least. What I found yesterday in speaking with citizens attending the trolley open house was that the vast majority want a functional bus system first! Seniors want it because they realize they will not be able to drive forever and they will need a transit system that will allow them to maintain their independance. Younger people want a bus system that runs efficiently and has longer operating hours so they might attend concerts and the local entertainment scene without having to worry about a DUI on the way home.Sadly, our “visionaries” at city hall don’t want to deal with the “plebian” task of expanding our bus system, they just see a “trolley”!

  7. Casual Observer
    Oct 2, 2009, 12:48 pm

    Sis,

    As a card carrying member of the maligned group, I will be glad to stop acting like a twelve year old, when the pro-folly troupe quit acting like intellectual two year olds predisposed to thinking every shiny trinket dangled above their cradle is beneficial.

    Saying that we need a trolley because a nice developer has yet to find a trolley based economic development project that has failed, is naive at best. Shouldn’t you at least ask how those areas would have developed in the absence of a trolley?

    For instance, for the last decade or so, Idaho, Treasure Valley, and Boise, have routinely ranked among the 5 fastest growing economies in the nation. That you will recall, was accomplished without a trolley.

    Now you, and the other Pro-BUTs, would have us believe that, if we are to compete with the places with trolleys that we have been routinely beating for the past decade, we need a trolley.

    Seems to me that the argument is more consistent if one suggests that their trolley systems have been holding them back and if we want to continue to beat them for another decade, we should avoid the mistakes they made by investing in dubious transportation projects.

  8. Sisyphus, the reason they don’t fail is that they are heavily subsidized by continually going back to the taxpayer and asking for more money. The Portland Mall just raised their MAX rail LID tax 70%.

    The CCDC loves this project because they reap the taxes since it is in their Urban Renewal District. This has been pointed out by many people including Sharon Ullmann who is a COMPASS board member. To directly quote her:

    “The vast majority of the proposed project is within the Capital City Development Corporation’s urban renewal area. Under tax increment financing, should there be new growth along these major portions of the line, the property tax revenues generated will be diverted to CCDC. The cost of services (fire, police, paramedics, roads, etc.) to serve the new growth will be borne by the rest of the county’s taxpayers.”

    The Little Rock and Kenosha streetcars are not successful unless you consider ridership of 340 and 200 a day to be a success. They have the same problem the Boise one does – they go nowhere.

    Almost every single opponent of the streetcar including myself WANTS better public transit here. The misconception about the Boise streetcar is that it will kickstart valleywide public transportation. What a laugh – Valleyride has been unable to increase their ridership since 2007 and the streetcar certainly isn’t going to help them. Two cars going around a 2.4 mile loop is not going to kickstart anything except huge tax expenditures to put it in. You have $60 million for the initial outlay. Then you have 3 future small expansions that will have to be paid for in tomorrows dollars and no one can even say when or IF they will even happen. The Capital Blvd and Broadway routes are already developed. I also have had some long conversations with some of the Boise developers who have told me the streetcar is irrelevant to their plans.

    If people would stop for 2 seconds and think about why they took the streetcars out in the first place they would realize that it was because they are inefficient and didn’t fit the transit needs of the community. Streetcars are antiquated technology that have evolved very little since their inception other than going from horse-drawn to electric.

    The real irony is that one of the big deals about the Boise street car is that it would be a tourist attraction. During the Special Olympics and Ironman they couldn’t have used it if they HAD it because the streets were blocked off.

    The people acting like twelve-year-olds are Bieter and Company.

  9. Folks, you’re confusing mass transit with economic development. The trolley will do diddly to solve traffic problems other than giving reasons for getting folks out of their cars. Sounds great for everybody. But it will bring people downtown. And that’s the goal. The comparison to light rail systems is apples to watermelons.

    With regard to traffic systems, there are a few that have failed or are subsidized heavily. From the people in the know, one should not even be contemplated until we reach the million person mark for the area. Yes the one in Portland is suffering but the new one in SLC is way beyond expectations already. The idea of buying 240 buses is ludicrous in light of current ridership. Until there is incentive for people to get out of their cars, its a futile endeavor. But confusing the two just muddies the water to accomplish your political objectives.

    As far as the Kenosha and Little Rock lines, your assertion of ridership as a measure of success is misguided for the reasons set forth above. I found the following assessment:

    The successful project in Kenosha is the one that Burnett and other backers cite most often, given that the city’s population and Greeley’s are roughly equal. They also point to the economic boon that resulted when Little Rock finished a trolley system that looped into the northern section of the city.

    “Little Rock is a really excellent example of how these projects can contribute to economic development,” Burnett said. “It’s revolutionized north Little Rock. I know that they are also talking about linking a campus with downtown.”

    I was initially skeptical of this proposal but after talking to people who know more than I, I’m more convinced its a good idea especially because of the stimulus money. I’m listening but you’re not swaying me.

  10. Casual Observer
    Oct 2, 2009, 1:57 pm

    Addendum.

    Just went to the web and looked up the 10 fastest growing cities (Census.gov) I then looked up cities with streetcars (http://cincystreetcar.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/cities-with-streetcars-and-light-rail/)

    Not a single match.

    So much for the streetcars bring prosperity hypothesis.

  11. Blazing Saddle
    Oct 2, 2009, 2:20 pm

    I’ve been watching this debate for quite some time now. The Folly backers has had a curious smell to it that was hard to place. Manure, yes. But, the exact kind had been alluding me.

    Then, this morning, noting the reaction I got from the horses when I bumped into the grain bin, it came to me – Cargo Cult.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

    Paraphrasing here, Cargo Cults, like horses, only see the superficial exterior of a process without having any understanding of the underlying substance. The error of logic made by the folly backers, and horses, consists of mistaking a condition (i.e., trolleys and feed bins.) associated with wealth or corn, for a sufficient condition for wealth or corn to materialize, thereby reversing the causation.

    In english, or horseglish, Wealthy cities may foster trolleys, but trolleys do not foster wealthy cities.

    Bieter and Company – 21st Century Cargo Cultists

  12. The Little Rock project is VASTLY different from what is being proposed here. The Little Rock streetcar was an additional added piece of a $300 million planned development called the Little Rock River Market District which was started in 1996. The Little Rock streetcar is is what is referred to as a “heritage” streetcar which has no more relevance to true public transportation than the train at Disneyland. And, the Little Rock streetcar wasn’t added to the project UNTIL 2004 – it FOLLOWED the development of the area, it didn’t LEAD it or CAUSE it.

    In order to try to make the Little Rock streetcar more successful, they are now talking about doing EXACTLY what I have pointed out in previous posts. They are now looking for more tax money to try to expand the system, to try to get more riders, to try and make it into viable public transportation. However, it will have the same problems that all streetcars have – namely, high infrastructure costs, high operating costs, high subsidies, inefficient design, and NO FIRM PROOF OF DEVELOPMENT caused by its presence.

    One of the Boise developers I talked to actually went to Little Rock with Bieter and later told me that it was so vastly different than the Boise streetcar that he couldn’t even make a logical comparison.

    The Portland system has been analyzed and pretty much the same conclusions have been drawn. Please see the following:

    http://www.newswithviews.com/O'Toole/randal5.htm

    http://www.ti.org/FS3.html

  13. Just went to the web and looked up the 10 fastest cars and then I looked up cars with hybrid technology.

    Not a single match.

    So much for the new technology is better hypothesis.

    Logic much?

  14. Has anyone gone downtown Boise around 10:00 in the morning and observed how many people are out and about. I have and you would think the place was a ghost town.

    I have a real tough time with elected officials who want to spend millions for no productive reason. Don’t worry, the studies will be done and the data manipulated by pro-trolley people to frame all of this as the best decision of this century for Boise.

    We need to learn to love our cars and busses for the freedom they provide one and all at a reasonably low cost.

  15. I stopped at the show & tell on the trollys. Ihad several questions to ask them, 1. how sure are they the funds (federal) will be given to them. Answer I got was, they couldn`t be sure.

    2. where was the electric coming from and how much. Answer: why of course Idaho power, cost is not known at this time.

    3.Who will pay for the maintaince of said trolly. Answer: still working that out.

    4. who will be paying the wages of the persons that driving the trollys. Answer: the city of course.

    I wasn`t very pleased with the answers I received from those folks. I also asked what the ACHD had for imput on the plan & was told they haven`t gotten that far along as yet.

    I don`t think a fish market smells as bad as this Idea the mayor has.

  16. Casual Observer
    Oct 2, 2009, 8:16 pm

    Sis, Bad example.

    I have never heard anyone claim that hybrid cars are fast. However, the Pro-BUTs make incessant claims that trolleys stimulate development.

    Trouble is, none of the fastest growing cities have trolleys, and that has included Boise for the past decade.

  17. There is one major problem that no one has addressed. I keep hearing people on the news saying that there will be public hearings and the the public will get to comment.

    The problem is that even if there are public hearings the mayor and city council have already made up their minds and your testimony will not matter. I have a friend that works at city hall and they say that the issue is already decided. PERIOD. It is just how the mayor and council can create “creative financing” to pull it off.

    What citizens should do is write or email the White House and Congress and tell them we do not want the “stimulus” money. With no fed money the path that the mayor and council are on comes to an end.

    So you can show up and testify all you want – but it will do no good.

    EDITOR NOTE–THIS is why we need a vote of the people. Even an advisory vote that city council and mayor agree to honor….the GUARDIAN will gladly write the ballot question language.

  18. Run the thing down ParkCenter, through center city and out to the mall with a FEW stops along the way and you would have folk use the trolley. Running in circles around downtown, a few blocks only is a tourist scam.

  19. Mr. Watcher
    Oct 3, 2009, 5:14 pm

    Below is the mind set of the people that are running our city. We could go beyond the city but the words below are perfect for Darth Daver and his marry group.
    from Atlas Shrugged, p. 413
    When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.

  20. I’m gonna buy Dave a train set as a going away gift

  21. FACT CHECK REQUESTED: This is how I understand it. Sorry this a bit off topic (kinda) but could the editor speak to how the valley vehicle pollution testing seems to be just another tax. They’ve been giving us all a $15/yr sniff test with no results. Do they publish how many vehicles don’t pass? I’d really like to know that number. I bet the number is real low. And they get to keep driving anyway after only an effort repair the issue. (A second failure does not mean parking it) Maybe I got it all wrong, but it seems to me we do have too much pollution, but are simply taking money from people rather than actually reducing the LA like pollution.

  22. Mr. Watcher
    Oct 5, 2009, 8:27 am

    Zippo, very few of the cars tested fail if they are of the newer types with an O2 sensor. The reasons for this is if any of the sensors goes south, the car will hardly run. Such a car that has a failed MAP, O2, etc. will run by design just well enough to get it to a shop for repair. Even in the land of total government control CA, that state only demands a SMOG inspection and testing every two years.
    The valley’s largest problem is government never had impact fees to build tens of thousands of new homes. The people with homes were taxed to pay for new schools, roads, etc. over and over again so the builders who build all of these new homes could not have to pay for impact fees. This caused roads to take on far more use then they were designed to handle which had traffic backed up spewing out smog. So our smog in the valley is caused by government and now we have a problem cause by government, government will come and fix it at our expense. LOL, government is going to save us from itself but its going to cost us. You can’t make this stuff up.
    Bottom line: government is making money off of this and pleasing the Godless, creation worshipers in Washington DC.

  23. Seems to me that “open house” is for those who have promoted it. “Open meeting” would of let the opposing view be heard.

    Now they have hired a $90,000 consultant to market a trolley that doesn’t even have funding yet. It now obvious that Team Dave doesn’t even consider the public’s views in the decision making process.

    Sis’s last post is the most well thought argument for the trolley. I think more people are upset not to the novelty but to the circumvention of them as voters in making such a financial decision.

    I guess if City Hall ramrod’s this through, I will be sponsoring the first Boise Booze Trolley Folly. I figure 15 or so bars in the 2.6 mile loop out to make for a fun Saturday afternoon.

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