When Clipper Magazine Stadium opened to cheers, members of the Bring Back Baseball Committee were hailed for their efforts and their success.

And it was a success. But it was one, said Jack Howell, that was 15 years in coming. Neither Rome nor minor league ballparks, nor any other community amenity, gets built in a day.

So when the Federal Transportation Administration in May opted not to fund a plan to bring streetcars back to Lancaster, Howell, president of the Lancaster Alliance and chair of the 15-member committee trying to bring the trolleys to town, wasn't overly upset. People might have concluded that the streetcar effort was stalled for good. But they couldn't be more wrong.

In coming months, backers hope to form a nonprofit corporation to run the trolley system, and another poll will be done, specifically targeting city workers and residents, those most likely to use a trolley system. Other promotional efforts are being dreamed up, as are ways to pay for all of it.

It's all part of "becoming real," said Howell. People have this idea that trolleys would be as trolleys were: clanking down the middle of the street, gumming up traffic. Some seem to think it nostalgic nonsense, foolish window dressing in a city with so many other needs.

For those who like the idea, it is a way to boost revitalization and fulfill legitimate transportation needs. The city's strategic plan, notes Mayor Rick Gray, specifically calls for efforts to boost alternative transportation, making it easier to get around town. The trolley plan does exactly that, said Gray.

"This is still on the front burner."

Checking other towns
Trolleys petered out here in 1947, a victim of the auto industry's success. In recent years, some cities have brought back streetcars, and local leaders have visited several such towns, learning about both the good and the bad. Visits to additional streetcar cities are planned.

Gray said several people who went on these visits had "a really skeptical attitude, and came back juiced."

In theory, there's state money available for trolleys here, up to $10 million in Pennsylvania's Capital Improvement Budget. But the reality is that money would only be available if backers have lined up the money to match it; and even then, there's no guarantee.

An initial 2.6-mile trolley system would cost about $14.1 million. Streetcars would operate at about 10-minute intervals around a north-south loop along Queen and Prince streets, from the city Amtrak station to Southern Market Center at South Queen and Vine streets. A new parking garage at the train station would make it easy for people to park there and take the trolley downtown. Fares could be as low as 25 cents.

The system would be built by the Red Rose Transit Authority, with federal funding. RRTA would likely be contracted to operate the system, handling maintenance, customer service and other functions; but the trolleys would not seek an operational subsidy from the transit authority.

The system itself would be set up as a free-standing, nonprofit organization. The paperwork to incorporate in Pennsylvania could be filed in the next few months, said Howell; once the group is on file in Pennsylvania, it has one year before it must file all documentation in order to receive a federal 501(c)(3) designation.

In the meantime, the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College will launch a second survey. The first, completed in April, polled 408 Lancaster County residents and concluded that 83 percent believed that a streetcar system could improve transportation between downtown destinations; nearly three in four believed it could help stimulate economic growth. Results from that survey are posted on the city's Web site at www.cityoflancasterpa.com.

The second survey "will target about 10 major employers downtown," said Howell, where workers might use trolleys to get to baseball games, go to restaurants or for shopping. Also targeted will be residents near the proposed loop, including those at the Lancaster House North and South apartment complexes. Many who live there are elderly, a demographic that might be inclined to use trolleys.

Then, through the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau, trolley backers will reach out to meeting planners and determine whether a streetcar system could be a factor in booking business here.

Howell calls this "the tail of the dog," but in fact when trolleys were first proposed in 2001, then-Red Rose Transit Authority executive director James Lutz said the "driving force" behind the streetcar idea was the convention center and adjacent Marriott Hotel being built on Penn Square.

That remains a factor. Trolleys, backers acknowledge, might become an attraction in and of themselves.

But "if it doesn't meet the internal transportation needs of the community, we're [doomed]," said Howell.

Others associated with the effort believe it could. Tim Peters, chief executive officer of Warfel Construction and a member of the Streetcar Steering Committee of the Economic Development Action Group, said he believes employees at his firm's North Prince Street office would use the service to go downtown for lunch and similar excursions.

"It's another form of mass transportation," said Peters. "And it's one more thing the convention center would have to offer: Conventioneers can walk right out of the hotel" and catch a trolley to other attractions around town.

Money to build such a system obviously remains a problem, though backers say they're exploring a variety of options to raise funds. Advertising signs would certainly be placed on the trolleys, said Howell, but maybe individual stops could have sponsors, as well. Special cars could be made available for weddings and graduations. "We're trying to think creatively," Howell said.

For now, the thinking goes on behind the scenes. Backers would like to see that change, as well, perhaps by bringing an actual new streetcar to Lancaster, parking it somewhere where residents and downtown employees would see it, and staffing it with someone who could tout the benefits of such a system. "But we don't have money for that," he admits.

The money might come, however, just as it did for the Community Safety Coalition and for the Bring Back Baseball Committee.

The coalition, which now pays for security cameras around town, took nearly three years to put together.

"It was really never our expectation that we'd get this up and running in 2007," said Peters. "It would have been serendipity if it had.

"But this gives us a chance to plan."

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Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.