For this week, our group mainly focused on meeting together and re-evaluating our strategy on how to best inform the public of the government’s intentions with the streetcar and how to inform the government of people’s need from the streetcar. We further developed our assessment of the effectiveness of the BQX streetcar, both economically and humanistically city wise and community wise, using criteria laid out by Baltimore’s light rail system planners and community groups such as TRUST South LA. Members continue to study the progress of other streetcar systems in other American cities, such as Baltimore and Hoboken, as well as researching other cities that planned to build a streetcar but then aborted their plans, San Antonio, TX or Arlington, VA.  We are also in the process of redefining community’s needs from the streetcar, which we need to complete much more field work, collecting data by conducting interviews and doing community planning, in order to accomplish. We also roughed out a clearer picture of our deliverable by creating a brochure with a map of the proposed streetcar line with community input collected from interviews.  

Our first task that we set out to accomplish is to determine the criteria the streetcar must meet in order to be ‘successful’. Our criteria were mostly altered and adapted from criteria made by the Baltimore Region Rail System Plan Advisory Committee (since streetcars are rail based) and the criteria listed in the World Transport Policy and Practice book. The criteria mainly focus on economic benefit to the city, as well as personal needs of people. The criteria are as follows:

• The rail system must serve corridors with high concentrations of population. (The more people use it, the more purpose it has being built and will have a quicker return in investment).

• Rail system must serve major employment centers, activity centers, universities, shopping centers. (It must lead to places that people want to go or building it is not useful and a waste of money).
• Rail System must support existing land use and major targeted growth areas. (It must be able to have a return on investment by being in the right place where lots of people would have to use it).
• Rail system must meet the needs of the transit-dependent population (Otherwises, it fails to meet its essential purpose and will probably fail in being a self-sufficient system).
• Optimize the use of existing transit system (This would decrease costs and cause less disruption in the community from construction)
• “Seamless” for transit rider (Must be easy to use, or people will not use it)
• Provide a trip which is as competitive as possible with the automobile with regard to speed and reliability (Or else, people will use the alternative transport and it does not strengthen public transportation).
• Attract new riders (This helps to strengthen public transportation and increase revenue)
• Improve or maintain access to employment; goods and services while shortening trip lengths and/or reducing the need to travel (It will positively affect citizen’s day to day lives, making overall life happier and easier.)

The community based, humanistic criteria of the streetcar are based on the principles of the TRUST South LA Community Group. These criteria are mostly aimed at maintaining the culture of the community and strengthening its economic interdependence. The criteria are as follows:

• Since construction of streetcar will most likely accelerate gentrification and increase rents/property values, stabilized or low income housing must also be preserved as to allow current community members to stay in their homes; therefore, retaining some of the culture and social dynamic of the neighborhood, as well as instilling a diverse population.
• Along with stabilized/ low income housing, businesses that move into these growing areas should be encouraged to hire locally or promote local businesses. This would ensure that community members use the BQX and strengthen community bonds.   
• It must be environmentally friendly, as to help the environment and not negatively impact public safety. Its construction should also focus on minimizing disturbances in the neighborhood, such as trying to avoid moving as much infrastructure as possible and working at reasonable times as to not annoy community members.

Community criteria will be mentioned in regards to informing government officials about the needs of the people if the streetcar project ever advances. For our project, it is more important to first analyze whether a streetcar is a viable option that can effectively serve its basic function as a transportation system, and then determine further its further impact on the community. These criteria will help us to evaluate the effectiveness of other city’s streetcar systems and the planned BQX. We will discuss our criteria with Julia Kite at Transportation Alternatives to see if we are missing something.

As far as comparing other cities’ streetcars to the BQX plan, individual group members are further developing their research. Adrian continues to research on the Hoboken, NJ streetcar line. Patrick continues to research the effectiveness of the Baltimore, MD light rail line, finding the bulk of the rail criteria, as well as finding similarities to the proposed BQX line, such as building the line to foster a growing area and not support an already made area. Muhammad is now focusing on other cities’ abandoned streetcar lines, such as in San Antonio, and why they were abandoned. We do this research in the hopes of finding what works when executing a streetcar plan and what prevents a streetcar car from being built, as guidance or examples of caution in the BQX streetcar’s development. Overall, we focused much more on the general project idea this week, rather than these points.

Our group’s main work in progress is establishing community based contacts and conducting fieldwork. I have e-mailed several community organizations, including Uprose in Sunset Park, Red hook Community Group, and Queens Community Board for Long Island City/Sunnyside, but no organization responded. We are still on the lookout for community meetings, but for now we are going to conduct interviews with people in affected communities. These interviews will ask questions such as: do you think you community needs a new form of transportation?; have you heard of the BQX streetcar plan?; what were your first impressions of this plan?; what you would like to see as the result of the BQX?; what are some of the potential drawbacks of the BQX plan?; do you think a streetcar is the best form of transportation for your area? In general, members of the affected communities are mostly going to be concerned with how the streetcar will be built into the infrastructure and if they are able to stay in their homes after it is built. The streetcar will accelerate gentrification and change the makeup of the neighborhood into mostly diverse, poorer blue collar communities into upper class, white white collar communities, which the government benefits from because these richer communities generate more revenue. I am not sure what community organizing is already going on because I have not been able to contact community groups and their social media pages mainly focus on other topics, such as environmentalism. So, learning about community groups’ goals is a priority. Our group can help by clarifying the government’s BQX initiatives and how it can affect their communities.  

We were also working on our deliverable. We were debating whether to create a brochure or a poster. We definitely wanted to include a map of the BQX line overlaid with income per neighborhood and possibly population density per neighborhood, in order to show why these particular areas were being updated with new transportation. We also wanted to include community input by people from different affected communities. This needed to be presented as well as introducing the main idea and impact of the BQX. With so much information, the deliverable must naturally segregate subject points. So, we decide on having a brochure/map that opens up into different points but in the back has one comprehensive map. This deliverable is meant to inform the public about the BQX plans and its potential impact.

Everyone in the group functions extremely well together.  Everyone is very hardworking and is always available for help and input. Our members are very receptive to new ideas and finding the best ways to express ideas. We are currently working on finding community contacts, besides Transportation Alternatives, to hone in on community needs. Hopefully, we meet someone to further discuss the BQX’s financial sustainability or an actual developer in the BQX plan, but these are long shot goals. We are adding to our research, while drafting the white paper and a deliverable.