It has been no surprise that light rail is not only good at getting people around, but is good at providing an economic boost to an area. Just go to downtown Portland and see how a town with 11.4% unemployment has a growing, thriving downtown core. In 2008, Joe blogged about a 1.6 mile streetcar line that would generate some $388M in new development and create more than 700 new jobs.
In Ottawa, two studies say that light rail line will "generate $3 billion in economic stimulus and create 20,000 person-years of employment during construction alone." It will also reduce OC Transpo's (the transit operators)operation costs by $100 million per year.
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