Home    block    Download Paper!    block    Delivery    block    Pick-Up Locations    block    Advertise with the Post    block    About Us    block    Contact Us   

   News    block    Opinion    block    Local Flavor    block    Entertainment    block    Sports    block    Street Snaps   
Search

Logo

Post Editorial


Off the Track - Part II

May 16, 2008

By Artie See

Part Two of Two

If a streetcar trolley system were to be built in downtown Lancaster, how much would it cost, and who would pay for it?

In February 2006, Stone Consulting & Design performed a "City of Lancaster Streetcar Feasibility Study." This report estimated the cost of constructing a 2.6 mile trolley loop to be more than $14 million.

There is no available Federal or State funding to construct this kind of project, which would be located almost entirely within Lancaster City. (Click to read more)

Off the Track

May 9, 2008

By Artie See

Part One of Two

Streetcars. The word evokes a simpler, less complicated life.

In the first half of the last century, few people could afford an automobile. Streetcars provided a new freedom. People could live farther away from where they worked and shopped knowing that reliable and inexpensive transportation would get them to their destination and back again.

Here in the 21st century, life is quite different. Our society is heavily dependent upon the automobile. (Click to read more)

Stealth Funding

May 2, 2008

Anyone passing through downtown Lancaster can’t miss the hotel and convention center being constructed on Penn Square. Before summer ends, the hotel tower will be taller and more massive than the Griest Building, currently the tallest building in Lancaster, located across the square.

We’ve all heard the project described as a “publicprivate partnership.” We’ve seen the often-quoted $170 million price tag. But this does not tell the whole story.

One of the main promises made by project sponsors to justify this development was the large amount of real estate taxes the hotel would pay. Unfortunately, the current financing plan allows the “private” hotel to get away with paying ZERO taxes at all for at least 20 years. At the Lancaster City/County/School District of Lancaster 2008 tax rate of 34.0160 mils, the $76 million hotel would have paid well over $2.5 million a year in real estate taxes (assuming the building would be assessed at what it actually costs to build). (Click to read more)

Mayor Gray: ‘Calm Down’

April 25, 2008

Lancaster mayor Rick Gray is now promoting a controversial initiative called “traffic calming.” It doesn’t do a mayor any good to have his citizens buzzed by speeding cars as they try to cross the street.

Traffic calming can include a number of ways to slow down vehicles, including lane narrowing, curb extensions or “bulb-outs,” and “speed humps” (raised sections of roadway). Two-way traffic is another practical way to slow vehicles down, because even synchronized signals can only allow traffic to move smoothly in one direction.

(Click to read more)

Taxpayer Tragedy

April 18, 2008

Rising into the sky, floor by floor, a tall hotel is being built. When finished, the hotel will tower over Penn Square in downtown Lancaster. The hotel is owned by the taxpayers of the city of Lancaster, although few locals will step inside its doors, and a private business partnership stands to benefit the most from it.

Today, the cost of building that hotel and the publicly owned convention center attached to it approaches $180 million, virtually all of it paid for and guaranteed by the public.

It didn’t start out that way. In August of 1999, the public was first introduced to the idea of a hotel and convention center at Penn Square in downtown Lancaster. According to published reports, the $75 million project would include a $20 million 61,000 square foot convention center, a $7 million expansion of the King St. Parking Garage, and a privately funded $45 million luxury hotel in the former Watt & Shand building (with retail shops at street level). Funding for the convention center would be provided by a $15 million state grant, and $15 million in bonds floated by a new convention center... (Click to read more)






© Copyright 2008 by Lancaster Post.   All Rights reserved.