Before a small audience of UW officials, Chancellor John Wiley and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz spoke glowingly Tuesday night of a possible streetcar system in Madison, the first since a March snowstorm took out the city's original system in 1935.
Together, the city and university are weighing their options.
\People are rediscovering streetcars and the advantages they have ... not just because they're clean and they're quiet ... but because there's some kind of very nice relationship ... between the transportation systems available and the kind of land use you get,"" Cieslewicz said, before introducing Charles Hales, the engineer who led Tuesday night's presentation representing HDR Engineering.
Hales was a city council member in Portland, Ore. and responsible for its transportation; his firm revitalized downtown Portland, with a streetcar system that tackled the city's lack of parking as well as high traffic from students, metropolitan business and industry.
Construction of the rails included a promise to business owners that each 600-foot section, into which trenches were cut in the existing concrete, would be completed in three weeks.
""We tried to develop some techniques that would get us in and out of the project in short order, because we had built light rail in downtown Portland, and we put some merchants out of business by tearing up the streets and building things for six months in a row,"" Hales said.
Madison's similar problems with construction and congestion made Hales' presentation that much more compelling; Portland's five-mile loop, which opened in 2001, cost the city $55 million but has resulted in $1.4 billion in development impact in four years. Hales is confident areas of Madison could similarly benefit from a streetcar project.
In addition to Tuesday's presentation, Cieslewicz and Hales discussed rail options with 200 people Monday night at the Monona Terrace. Cieslewicz also took a trip to Portland to experience its rail system firsthand, indicating the city is poised for change.
""What we're talking about now is not so much whether or not we'll have a rail system in Madison,"" Cieslewicz said. ""We're debating what kind of rail system we'll have in Madison: whether it ought to be electric or diesel, whether it ought to be primarily a commuter system or a system that works for urban development.\
