Light rail in Reno?
A lot of hullabaloo is being made about a light rail system that would go down the Virginia Street corridor from Meadowood Mall to the university. The Reno-Gazette Journal reported this at the end of April along with another article detailing more bus route cuts, and I hope you take a look at my own homage to past bus routes lost. Also, a fellow J-school student created this map of bus route ridership and neighborhood economic background:
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RTC Washoe is looking at Portland, Ore. as a model because they built a 2.4 mile long stretch of streetcar tracks. Portland is a good model for all the reasons stated in the article (increased ridership, residential and commercial developments along the line) but Portland proper has half a million residents, while Reno has barely 300,000 in its metropolitan area.
I’ve wanted to take pictures of Virginia Street for awhile just to complain about the conditions. I walk from my apartment to restaurants like Sup and India Cuisine or to Junkee (it’s a used-clothing store, folks), and have a terrible time of it because of all the crazy drivers rolling over the two foot wide sidewalk. Virginia Street is a mess. There would have to be some serious reconstruction if the development office thinks they can build a streetcar and add buses to cramped four sometimes two sometimes three-and-a-half lanes of traffic.
Another consideration is the cliched “chicken or egg” scenario – is light rail going to motivate people to live downtown? or do people have to be converging downtown to necessitate a light rail? Unfortunately, there is no place to build residences along that corridor because it’s so chock full of casinos and expanses of strip-mall heaven.
What downtowner wants to wade through last nights gambling and alcohol binge to get to their bus stop? Or traverse the asphalt tundra of Best Buy’s parking lot? Put bus stops where people can live safely – far far away from casinos and empty lots (and I would counter that the Best Buys and WalMarts should be on the edges of town).
In any case – RTC has a long way to go and it should use social media to get proper feedback from downtown residents, university students and the Reno populous at large before it plunges $70 million into its pet project. I’m available for hire 
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Thank you for your great article. I would like to respond to some of the concerns you raised.
1) The fact that Reno has only 300,000 in its metropolitan area (vs. Portland with over 500,000) does not preclude a viable streetcar system. Streetcar (or tram as sometimes called) systems operate, for example, in many European cities as small as 100,000 to 150,000 people. While the population densities in these cities may be higher than in Reno, I argue that the prime areas for future development are not without of the current boundaries of the city (as we have grown until now, i.e. sprawled out north, south, east, and west), but within.
2) The chicken and egg scenario. More than a new bus line for example, light rail and streetcar plans represent a more important and permanent commitment to the improvement of an area. These systems require expensive permanent infrastructure which not only provide the track on which a streetcar will travel, but they mark an area which a city has committed many resources to improving. A bus line may be moved or canceled without much wasted infrastructure; perhaps a few wasted signs or bench which probably could be moved. Tracks for trains inlaid into the road are permanent structures and these therefore provide assurance to all involved (residents, business owners and patrons, land developers, etc., etc.) that the city will invest and continue to invest in improving the area.
3) Projects like these require thinking outside of the box. Too often personal automobiles are given priority in the planning process. If we build a streetcar, where will the cars go? The question should be, how do we eliminate some of these cars by providing more efficient transportation options? You argue that there isn’t enough room on Virginia to put the streetcar. Many cities in the world have converted busy streets into pedestrian zones (or transit/bike/pedestrian only) zones. Imagine Virginia, between say the river and 4th street where traffic is very slow already, completely closed to all traffic except streetcars, pedestrians, and bicycles. An example of where this has occurred is Seville, Spain. I invite you to investigate.
How this project goes forward only time will tell. The Obama Administration has showed much favor towards streetcars recently by awarding Portland $75 million for a 3 mile loop there. Next year we will see an important transit bill which surely will contain federal funding for rail transit. Gas prices will rise further, increasing demand for mass transit. Streetcars are efficient and can draw power from for example solar power, a vast resource Nevada has only begun to tap.
Thanks!