In this 17-minute video, Michael Powell of Powell’s Books talks about why he led the effort to convince property owners in Portland’s Pearl District to tax themselves to build a streetcar line, and what that streetcar has done for economic development in Portland. He calculates the benefits this way: The number of pedestrians in the crosswalk in front of his store numbered three an hour before the line opened in 2001, he says, but when he counted again in 2008 there were 938 pedestrians. Meantime, 400 new businesses opened in the Pearl, 90 percent of which are locally owned – the vast majority by women and minority entrepreneurs. In the meantime, property values have increased more than tenfold.

Interest in streetcars remains high, even though the absence of a dedicated federal funding source has meant that financing remains the biggest challenge for new streetcar projects. Reconnecting America composed these charts showing the funding sources used for the Seattle, Portland and Tampa streetcars for advocates trying to get a streetcar built in Washington DC. The charts illustrate the problem: There are multiple federal, state, and local sources that support early project work as well as construction and operations, but assembling them is a creative challenge, and success depends largely on the level of local commitment.