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PAUL
GLOVER ESSAYS: community
control of food, fuel, housing, health care,
planning, education, finance. |
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Return of
the Ithaca Trolley by
Paul Glover * August 1992
The trolley's return in the 1990's made Ithaca festive all year. The benefits of the trolley to the local economy, to environ-mental quality and community spirit easily repaid the investment. Bold and agressive action and creative funding got it moving. Today we're taking a ride: ![]() The trolley bell rings and we pull away at 14mph. Every ten minutes another trolley follows. |
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![]() This morning a music student is playing soft oboe melodies on her way to Lincoln Hall. We're as likely to hear guitar, saxophone or autoharp, or background tapes provided by one of Ithaca's hundreds of musicians. Some days there's a brief 'trolley lecture' on topics like architecture, sports, butterflies, or electromagnetic force, by whoever is inspired. ![]() Central Avenue to the traffic light has been converted to Trolley Park,with brickwork, trees, picnic benches and bandstand, popcorn and cider. The whole park was paid for by one alumnus. The passing switch here lets an uphill trolley continue. The uniformed conductors salute each other with another flourish of bells. ![]() We pass through Eddygate, sand-blasted and bright after years of neglect. We halt on Eddy Street's passing switch, generating more electricity as we brake, then move along to State Street. Ithaca's trolleys on steep green hills and 'central isolation' have brought us international notice. We're one of the smallest cities in the USA with a light rail system: a miniature San Francisco, the trolley tourism capital of the east. ![]() Everybody new to Ithaca or to the route gets a trolley route menu. Even natives rediscover their city: Eddy Street and State Street were part of Ithaca's first trolley system, from 1887 to 1935. In 1892 engineering professors were hired by horsecart haulers to declare that electric trolleys could not possibly climb these hills. But trolleys did, originally powered by hydroelectricity from Six Mile Creek, Cascadilla and Fall Creeks. One hundred years later certain experts said we couldn't afford to rebuild trolleys, but they were wrong too. ![]() The route was then, and is now, a silver spine connecting the best of Ithaca. Sunset on State Street rails gives the hill another waterfall, of steel. During those first 48 years, millions of rides were taken; five people were killed in trolley accidents. By 1992, jammed with automobile traffic, these routes were injuring 70 people yearly. Hundreds more were hurt by cars yearly on other city streets. Today just one of Ithaca's original trolleys remains, a model for our new ones, and we will see it up ahead. ![]() State Street is double-tracked, one track each edge of roadway, for the 90-second traverse (at 14 mph) of the one third mile to the curve at Seneca Way. There's less car traffic to disturb, because the trolleys and buses, park-and-rides, bike paths and pedal cabs help clear the streets. Plans are made to convert the top level of Seneca Street parking garage (rarely full anyway) to mutual housing, generating much more revenue than parking/shopping had. While the parking garages had lost $400,000 yearly, housing conversion produces property tax and sales tax that are dedicated to trolleys. The ramp's dull walls are being made friendlier. When these rails were re-laid, this street's original bricks were placed along the rails to make a red path. We slow along Seneca Way, merging left to the Commons-side of Seneca Street. We've got an exclusive trolley route the next six blocks to Corn (doubling as an ambulance expressway), by replacing about 30 CBD parking spaces and 16 spaces beyond. The trolleys bring hundreds daily who would not otherwise have come downtown, and reduce the need for parking spaces as well. ![]() And it had to be done by local people, donating time and talent. Business planners, engineers, accountants, architects, writers, land-scapers, gardeners, mechanics, artists, welders, electricians, citizens senior and junior all built it together, like a Bob Leathers playground, with professional direction. While City Hall was cooperative, granting the rail franchise, providing DPW labor, and moving contracts and permits through boards and commissions, most leadership and fundraising came from the general public. We avoided overpriced contractors and consultants as much as possible. ![]() Hundreds of local artists have been organized, to make sure the Commons is always lively. You never know what's happening till you go: some days there are tightrope walkers, comedians, jugglers, mimes, acrobats, singers or dancers. Sidewalk artists invite everyone to help chalk grey patches. All scheduled performers are paid with tokens called Commons Cents (in denominations of 100, 500 and 1,000 Cents). They and other artists collect donations from the crowds. ![]() On the other side of Seneca Street buses carry more riders than ever. Because the trolleys are historic, modern, stylish and frequent, they've taught Ithaca that transit is not just for people too poor to have cars. Transit is increasingly convenient, cheaper, ecological and restful. More Ithaca trolleys are planned (out Slaterville Road, the Trumansburg grade, the Cortland grade, down Conrail south to Spencer) and buses are routed to carry people where rails don't yet go. Other cities had already discovered bus ridership up when trolleys are installed. ![]() |
Commons
merchants will accept trolley tokens for face value, toward any
purchase. The tokens and $5.00 passes circulate as money in the Ithaca
area, further boosting local exchange.![]() Others along Seneca Street will board to connect with the Weekend Shuttle (WEESH), which goes north on Conrail track (at Fulton) to the Farmer's Market at Steamboat Landing (now with real steamboat rides), to Community Gardens and the Sciencenter, to Stewart Park (and Ithaca Festival), the Youth Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce (which is also a park & ride lot for trolley tourists). Southward on Conrail the Shuttle goes to Nate's Floral Estates, Southwest Park (co-housing, greenhousing, wood-lot), crosses forest and beaver dams on the way to Buttermilk Falls State Park, the bed & breakfast there, and soccer fields. With the cooperation of Morse Chain, this old rail spur climbing South Hill is being cleared over to South Hill school. Now there's easy access to and from South Hill, and an unusual view of Ithaca through wild lands a few blocks from the Commons. We're off again with bells and windchimes. A harmonica plays "Down in the Valley." Our ticket takers are trained volunteers, of all ages. ![]() Big green signs announce that Seneca Service recycles oil and freon. They do propane conver-sions. The trolley, in fact, might have saved this gas station from destruction. Plans had been drawn to destroy everything on that block (between Geneva and Albany) to build another parking garage. Up to $8,000,000 was going to be spent for 600 parking spaces. But trolleys needed far less than that amount for tracks, wires and cars, and those properties, now bounded on two sides by trolley lines, are valuable shops, co-housing, offices and green space. Some step out for Catholic churches, bottle recycling, Bev Martin elementary, and GIAC. ![]() Trolleys have raised commercial property value along the route, and the added tax revenues, about $200,000/year so far, are returned to the trolleys as tax increment financing. At the same time, Ithaca's Mutual Housing Association keeps housing costs and rents lower by removing nearby homes from the speculative market. Tax incentives are offered for gradual conveyance of rentals to the Urban Land Trust. We cross Meadow Street, still Ithaca's traffic sewer. It'll take decades to rebuild enough of the continental rail system to repair the damage to America that automobiles did. ![]() Good news up ahead. GreenStar Food Co-op is still dedicated to local organic food, bulk more than packaged, and vegetarian meals. GreenStar members welcome trolley riders with food samples. All money spent there is reinvested in Ithaca. GreenStar has removed paving for a small trolley park. Local farmers exhibit their tools and trade, talk crops and occasionally hire help. They're the real heroes of our local economy, the genuine social security our kids will have. Today there's a petting zoo. Here's where most people board WEESH. Others climb out for the bus station-- the original west end trolley station. ![]() Inlet Island is rebuilt with shops, a gaslamp waterfront promenade, and floral park. Pole barges give rides in channels draped with forsythia and clematis. There are excursion boat rides on the lake. Centerpiece of the park is a model of Cayuga Lake forty feet long. Guides explain the lake's water flow (nine year cycle), history (once crossed by the world's longest bridge) and folklore (mysterious booming drums), plus geology (formed by glaciers a half mile deep), ecology (Cayuga trying to become a swamp again), and fishing (stocked with millions of trout yearly). We're standing where airplanes were once built, from where the 1915 world airspeed record (93.5mph) was launched above Cass Park. ![]() Next stop is the Cass Playground-Pavilion-Park & Ride. From here, bicyclists take the old railroad grade, an easy ride to Taughannock Park and Trumansburg. Baseball players and fans hike over to the fields. ![]() Although the trolley project was widely popular, the main obstacle encountered had been yawning cynics, who saw challenges as barriers. Foremost of these was City Hall's Planning Department. Experts in the details of conventional development, devoted to wider highways and taller buildings, the Department's vision rarely reached beyond real estate deals. If the Department endorsed a project, action was taken and money spent. But citizen-initiated projects for parks, bikeways, community gardens, trolleys and historic preservation tended to be stalled. Funding sat idle. Rather than promote import replacement and grassroots ecological development, the Department helped tie Ithaca to corporations loyal only to profit. Despite the millions that taxpayers spent for planning during the past twenty years, the Department hadn't studied the basics for responsible plans: the supply sources of Ithaca's food and fuel, or the flow of money. Nor had it inventoried the potentials for locally-generated industry using local resources. Ithaca Journal editorials usually followed the Department's lead. Then new leadership cleared the track for Ithaca's trolley. The resources of the Department were enthusiastically organized to support trolley-inspired development, and to win state and federal rail grants. ![]() Half the City's share of the 1992 one cent county sales tax increase feeds the trolleys about $475,000/year. This took the sting from the tax. Much funding is private, however. Investors were encouraged by successes of nearby old-time locomotive routes. The Tioga Central Railroad made good money by hauling people from nowhere to nowhere, for the fun of it. The Susquehanna Steam Express carried full passenger cars between Binghamton and Syracuse. Dozens of other rail excursions covered the continent. Larger cities like Portland, Detroit, New Orleans and Seattle already had reinstalled antique trolleys. The first funding for Ithaca's rail enterprise began with average citizens. Ithacans bought small-denomination Trolley Bonds, redeemable when trolley service began, for tokens and special trolley events. ![]() [email protected] |