So I turn on the TV news, and there he is, in all his splendor. My brother-in-law, Jesse Gutierrez, who is the project manager of the modern streetcar project, is being interviewed, and he looks almost lifelike in his long-sleeved shirt and tie.
Having disclosed that information, I can now say that I am in favor of the project. Heck, I’d be in favor of the project no matter who was in charge of the construction. I think—fingers crossed!—that the city might have actually gotten something right this time. For far too long, city officials proposed one crackpot scheme after another in hopes of “revitalizing” downtown. They were all in the vein of, “If we build it, they will come.”
This time, they’ve turned things around. With the streetcar, it is now a matter of, “If they (students living downtown) come, business people will build it.” Of course, with the city of Tucson, “if” is always a mighty big word.
But at least this thing has a chance, unlike the aquarium, the science center, the rainbow bridge and the rest of the nonsense. Compared to the aforementioned, the modern streetcar is “Vitruvian Man” as opposed to a stick figure drawn by a pothead in the throes of an “Oh wow!” moment.
I was going to interview Jesse and the businesswoman who has emerged as the most vocal opponent of the project, but then I would have had to do all that disclosure stuff. I kinda feel sorry for that woman, but at the same time, I think the city has done a pretty decent job of minimizing the hassle of getting around the downtown area while Congress Street is torn up. The two westbound lanes on Toole Avenue are nice, and making Sixth Avenue two-way all the way through downtown is something they should consider making permanent.
I’ll just tell you about Jesse so that when you see him on TV over these next few months, you can put a backstory to the image. I’ll leave out the embarrassing stuff, like the frozen-flatulence-in-a-bottle science project in the sixth-grade.
When I first met Jesse, he was in elementary school, and everybody just knew that he was different. One night, after playing a basketball game at Cochise College (we won) and catching a postgame meal at Pizza Hut, I went to the house of my girlfriend (now wife), Ana. We were sitting on the couch watching some crappy late-night movie on what passed for cable TV back then; Jesse had fallen asleep on the adjacent love seat. Suddenly, he sat up, looked straight ahead, said, “Green potato balls,” then went right back to sleep.
That’s only about No. 83 on the Weird Jesse Stories list.
By the time he was in middle school, he would wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, walk into downtown Douglas, and climb onto the back of a truck with a bunch of much-older guys. They’d make the 30-mile trip out to the fields of Elfrida, where they’d pick produce all day. He’d come home exhausted, take a quick shower and then go ride his bicycle with his buddies until late in the evening. The hard work made him want to go to college, like all five of his older sisters would do.
He graduated to a motorcycle, which he bought with his own migrant-worker money. He tried to teach me how to ride it once, but all I remember from that experience is a really high-pitched voice in my head asking, “Where’s the brake?!”
He was a stud athlete in high school, captain of the football team and a star wrestler. Even though he only weighed 185 pounds, he wrestled as a heavyweight (which is usually for guys in the mid-200s). He reached the state championship, but was pitted against a kid from Globe who went 350 or so. The Globe kid couldn’t pin Jesse, but neither could Jesse turn him, so Jesse lost on points.
Jesse has always been a good guy, but a bit on the mischievous side. We used to go down to the international border on the east side of Douglas. He’d climb over the fence into Mexico, and then we’d throw a football back and forth across the border to see if we could trigger a sensor. Or he’d drive around town in a pickup truck until he spotted a Border Patrol vehicle. He’d then turn off his lights and start driving down alleys. When they were just about ready to close in on him, he’d turn the lights back on and pull into a Circle K for a soda. Another time, late one night, he took me fishing … in the water hazards of the Douglas Golf Course.
When he was in college at the UA, he got his pilot’s license and would fly down to a small municipal airstrip in Douglas, from which he could walk a few hundred yards to his parents’ house. A 21-year-old Hispanic male flying to and from the border on a regular basis … you know the feds had a task force assigned just to him.
And now, there he is on TV, all grown up and, you know, out. Good for him, and, I believe, good for Tucson.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2012.
A 3.9 mile streetcar costing an estimate $198 million that will allow college kids to pay to be taken the 4 blocks from the UofA to downtown instead of just walking or biking for free like they already do. But we can trust the city to manage money, right? This streetcar will be built using federal grant money, but maintained by tax dollars and fare hikes. Suntran anyone? Instead of utilizing the Old Pueblo Trolley to service the Old Pueblo, this “modern” streetcar will only services two neighborhoods, leaving the majority of Tucsonans the option of driving to downtown so they can pay ride the streetcar to a place they could’ve just drove to anyway. This streetcar is modeled after other streetcar cities like Portland, which has also failed to bring the economic boom promised by its proponents, and is also a financial drain on the city. Fortunately for Portland, their streetcar has proven to be an adequate way of transporting people around town and other destinations like the airport, which the Tucson streetcar will never do.
Having lived in Chicago and New York, I am a fan of a good public transportation system whether it’s economically viable or not. Tom Dehany, I hope you, your brother-in-law, and other Tucson streetcar fans ride the $hit out of the modern streetcar when it’s finally completed in 2013. And don’t forget to stop at every one of the 18 stops to gaze at the public art.
There’s a reason streetcars went “out of style” in almost all cities. They screw up traffic and hog ground downtown. They’re more expensive to maintain than busses, and when they break down, the entire tram line comes to a halt because the next tram cannot go around the broken one. Ditto of any accidents occur along the tram route. If a car breaks down in front of the tram, the tram is stuck. So, unless the tram is going to places everyone wants to go to, it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.
I have heard that the City anticipates having to subsidize the Streetcar to the tune of $10 million dollars. I could be wrong, and I’m sure that if that number is correct, that it is wrong, because the City always screws it up. It will cost waaaaay more than the City Coucil says (check out Sun-Tran). So the citizens of Tucson get the shaft again. Most Tucsonans don’t go downtown, don’t need to go downtown, and don’t want to go downtown. So, once again, we have the political elite building a project they think is cool and serves only a minute segment of the population. Just a fact for your consideration…what did every city west of the Mississippi River that has a succesful mass transit system (be it a trolly, a light rail or other) have before that mass transit system was in place…a sophisticated system of freeways or limited access roads to get around the city. What does Tucson not have…a decent roadway system. Heck, the City Council won’t even fill the potholes.
Light rail projects have been destroying slum neighborhoods and gave life and profit to cities. They are not financial sinkholes to anyone. The light rails of Phoenix and Portland rebuilt it’s economy in a positive way. Businesses were built within it’s path. Tucson’s downtown have restaurants, residential high rises and other businesses relocated and built even before the first light rail tracks. And there’s more $$$ pouring in.
I just laughed at all the negativity and out right lies from naysayers. Have you ever been downtown? I live there over the years and more and more people actually visit downtown and even live there! Tucson is butt ugly. And extending this light rail will fix Tucson. We need to focus on long term investments instead of the short get rich quick mentality that the naysayers in this section.
@Kentop – buses, bicycles and automobiles screw up traffic. That’s trouble than it’s worth, huh?
@mike923 Doesn’t the Fed subsidized oil? The city doesn’t have a decent road system because YOUR politicians gave the elite tax $$$ and tax breaks to invest $$$ in the corrupt financial system of the USA. The financial meltdown of 2008 gave America financial derivaties not the interstate highway or inter-continental railroad or even the internet (boondoggles to you )
@cody you are a confused Tucson NIMBY. You like public transport whether economically viable or not and yet, you hate Tucson’s streetcar.
Good story Danehy. I’m excited for the streetcar. The negativity in public forums like this space is so 2006. The money is spent, the tracks are getting laid, accept it.
You have got to be kidding me Danehick! You are supporting a $200M absolute boondoogle for Tucson just to keep your brother in law employed? If it did not involve a relative, I am sure you would not be so quick to support such a giant moneypit of a project. I would say you have lost your freakin’ mind, but that would assume you had one to start with.
The only benefit this ridiculous waste of taxpayers money will be the fratboys/girls who can ride downtown and get hammered without fear of a DUI.
Go get a real job, Tommyboy, and quit wasting ink. Turn your column over to an objective, level headed writer.
Jerry, we got the message. Now, don’t forget to clean the bathroom on the third floor. ok?
I have lived in Tucson 25 years. Like most of the community, I ignored downtown and thought of it as a place that was hard to find parking, boarded up businesses, crime, dirty novelty shops and lots of homeless people.
About 5 years ago I was participating in a program called Greater Tucson Leadership. It was my first time really spending any time downtown. The Fox theatre was recently completed, Rio Nuevo had grand plans and my perception of downtown changed a little bit, but it was still not an area that was fun to hang out and the life left with the workers every night at 5. Club congress, the Rialto the Fox theatre and ATC were all that were happening and never in harmony.
About the time that Tucson started seriously talking about the modern streetcar, things began to change. Was it a coincidence? Many who are skeptical will say yes. However, the developers and business owners who have made the decision to expand their business at a time when the economy should have only seen a decline in downtown. It is working. Look at the new 700 bed apartments on 5th and 5th. I called the leasing office. 100% leased for this fall. Look from Borderland Brewery to the Hub, Janos downtown kitchen, the Scottish Rite allowing their building to be used, The new Electric company building, O2Modern Fitness, Maynard ,the Playground, 2nd Saturdays, Barrio Brewerry, new parking structures…. DOWNTOWN IS HAPPENING. I came out of a concert at the Rialto a few months ago on a Monday night expecting the night to be over. Downtown was still rocking and did well into the night. Bars, clubs, restaurants. This is not the Tucson I knew.
When you ad in Main gate square, U of A games, and 4th AVE into downtown we have a decent core that will all be connected.
The perception is that downtown is going in a good direction and the streetcar has been the catapult for this transformation. It was estimated the 600-800 million in construction projects will go in along the streetcar. If you actually go downtown, you know that this is happening.
I can not force people to use the streetcar, but I will definitely use it and encourage others to as well. If we all do a little to help our core, the rest of the community will be a better place. Damion Alexander
When will you people wake up and smell the bull-shit?!? The trolley folly will cost the taxpayers & ratepayers over $400M over the next 20 years. Things like interest on the debt, relocation of utilities, operations and maintenance, legal claims, UofA subsidies, lost business revenues and taxes, etc., were never told to voters. In total, subsidies will amount to about $50 per passenger, per trip over the next 20 years; a taxi cab from UMC to Maloney’s would run about $9 with the tip.
Rio Nuevo has already pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars on downtown redevelopment which the RTA/COT are also claiming as streetcar success. Last year, the RTA said they would subsidize the streetcar to the tune of $1M per year ($13M total through 2026). They now say $3M per year ($39M total?). Jim Glock, former COT DOT, briefed the mayor and council last year that the streetcar would cost the COT $8,000 per day ($2.9M per year). Whose lies do you believe?
And since we have no experience with streetcars, we get to pay millions to engineers and consultants to do it for us.
Did you know that Sun Tran ridership is down by 2M per year since 2008? That the RTA added over 100,000 hours to the system last year, and plans to expand public transportation (PT) in Pima County by $500M ($41M per year in subsidies)? That the county’s 5-year transportation plan wants $73M per year in PT subsidies? These were based on a 2006 population projection of 1M in the county and expected to grow by 14,000 per year.
So, we lost over 125,000 people, yet the plan is to expand inefficient and ineffective government programs even further. The liberals call this progressive; I call it mal/misfeasance!!!
This is the u of a modern street car, you might as well name it correctly.
More waste of our tax dollars.
why can’t you get it right? The Project Manager is a female. Why do you insist on putting Jessie as the manager?? It’s so irritating. If you can’t even get that right, how is the rest of the story true?? Also, the street car project will benefit Tucson. Tucson has always been a don’t like change kind of town. Change is good people.
I am a little late having my two cents worth but here goes. How many pot holes does $198 fill? How many street car tickets do you have to sell to get a good ROI?
So I live way north of downtown and so have to drive south on Stone or Euclid. Both of those roads SUCK -they are shaking all of our cars to pieces! Now I park my car close or in downtown. Why would I need the Street car? I think a lot of students already bike and walk the miles from their campus or homes to 4th or downtown?! So WHO will be the riders??