El Paso City Council tasks city staff to compile data on streetcar operations, costs
EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — The El Paso City Council discussed the future of the streetcar in downtown on Tuesday.
Mayor Oscar Leeser put an item on the agenda to have the city manager reduce the streetcar schedule and have it operate during events.
Leeser said the streetcar runs mostly empty and that taxpayer money is going to waste.
He said it costs the city about $3 million to operate the trolley system.
Many El Pasoans that spoke during public comment at Tuesday's meeting were against reducing the streetcars operating hours.
"Reducing the hours is going to cause confusion and dimmish trust in the service, which means people will just take their car instead. If the general public is expected to use the service, it needs to be reliable, It needs to be consistent,” said Sebastian Escobar.
Many people said the streetcars are good for tourism and promote the history of El Paso.
"My husband and I want to see the continued daily service of our El Paso streetcars. I know many friends, family and other visitors to El Paso who enjoy using the streetcars," a statement from Patricia Hutman read.
“What my suggestion would be for you today would be to take a minute, study, what are other cities that are doing trolleys, what are the metrics that are success,” said Attorney Sam Legate, who also has two properties on the trolley route.
One woman agreed with Leeser's proposal. Lisa Turner said the streetcar is costing taxpayers too much money.
"Even if you got everybody downtown to ride it, it still would lose money and it only serves a small portion of downtown,” said Turner.
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City Rep. Chirs Canales put forth four motions about the streetcar. All of them except the first motion passed.
Motion 1: "Table item indefinitely."
- This motion did not receive any "yes" votes.
Motion 2: "Council directs city staff to conduct and economic impact analysis to assess the past, present and future economic development impact the streetcar, including potential future expansion, and the impact on our existing transit-oriented development incentive program agreements and to return within 90 days."
- Reps. Cassandra Hernandez, Isabel Salcido, Henry Rivera, Art Fierro and Canales voted "yes." Reps. Brian Kennedy and Alexsandra Annello voted "no."
Motion 3: "Council directs city staff to conduct an assessment of the impact that different models of streetcar operating hours have on transit access in the downtown and uptown areas and return within 90 days."
- Hernandez, Salcido, Rivera, Fierro, Annello and Canales voted "yes." Kennedy voted "no."
Motion 4: "Council directs city staff to conduct an assessment of the projected cost savings to the streetcar system that were result from the elimination of regular operating hours in favor of event-driven operation only and return within 90 days."
- The motion passed unanimously.
Following the votes, Molinar put forward a motion to "direct the city manager to bring the item back within 90 days to maximize the streetcar operations."
The motion passed however, Hernandez and Canales voted "no."
Leeser said Tuesday's decisions serve as guidance for the city manager and staff to figure out how they can move forward and make decisions about the streetcar operations.
"We want to make sure that the city manager and the city manager staff brings back an operational procedure that will help us maximize the streetcars," Leeser said after the discussion and action on the streetcar.
Joe Gudenrath, the executive director with the Downtown Management District, spoke during public comment and said he looks forward to continuing to work with the city on how they can increase streetcar ridership.
Former City Council Rep. Peter Svarzbein spoke both during public comment and after the decisions were made.
"This kind of conversation is sorely needed. Really happy to sort of see City Council sort of take it, take the time to go look more into detail about how this is impacting our downtown redevelopment, reinvestment along the streetcar as well as initiatives toward heritage tourism," Svarzbein said.
Watch the full City Council meeting below:
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