At the August 18 County Commissioners Work Session, Commissioners Stuckey, Martin, and Lehman all stressed that the feasibility study for downtown streetcars be as comprehensive and definitive as possible. Discussing a number of concerns regarding the proposed project, the Commissioners also asserted the study should result in an unequivocal conclusion as to whether or not the project will proceed.

The Commissioners’ discussion with County planning officials related to the pending approval of 2009 Lancaster County Urban Enhancement Funds, which includes a $20,000 grant to the City of Lancaster for a study on the “Economic Impact, Engineering Design, & Financial Sustainability of a Streetcar System in Downtown Lancaster City.”

The City will match these funds with $20,000 of its own. The remaining cost for the study—which is valued at nearly $150,000—will be covered by the Red Rose Transit Authority, County planning officials said.

Commissioner Lehman emphasized the importance of clearly determining the physical and technical feasibility of such a system: “I think that the main question to address in any feasibility study is how would it work on congested city streets, and what will the impact be to those congested city streets.”

All three Commissioners asserted the necessity that this study identify the source of operational funding and revenue for a downtown streetcar system. Stuckey noted that “a lot of things can be funded from a bricks and mortar standpoint,” while the crucial question relates to how the project would sustain itself financially.

Stuckey directly asked James Cowhey, Executive Director of the Planning Commission, whether the Streetcar Company has at all considered the use of government subsidies. Cowhey replied that the Company has said “at meetings I’ve attended that they believe they can engender operational funds from naming rights and marketing of the cars and things like that.” Cowhey did, however, grant that “there’s some room there for an expectation of public dollars.”

Concerning the possibility of marketing revenue, Lehman asserted that other elements of feasibility, such as likely ridership, will intertwine with such prospects:

“Simply to be able to say that you’ll get advertising dollars to subsidize the operation isn’t necessarily going to be a given, because advertising dollars are going to follow access, and access in this case is directly related to ridership….If there’s only one person riding, there isn’t going to be a lot of advertising going on inside of a streetcar.”

Finally, the Commissioners stressed that this study be, in Lehman’s words, “objective”—clearly addressing the difficulties of such a system and, if necessary, recommending that the plan be discontinued. “If this [study] were to move forward,” Lehman said, “I expect that there would be a definitive answer at the conclusion of this project.” Cowhey noted that the City’s purpose in the study is to bring such an objective analysis. According to Jane Pugliese of the Planning Commission, the City proposed this study as a “make or break” assessment.

Concluding the discussion, Commissioner Stuckey mentioned that the Commissioners may impose specific conditions upon the $20,000 grant before voting for its approval at the Wednesday meeting.