WacoTrib had a nice article the other day about recommendations related to a new PAC. Some may recall, part of the agreement with City of Waco giving funding for Foster Pavilion included $20 million from Baylor towards the PAC.

Recommending 1500 seats. Potentially near the arena. Really should set Waco up nicely for the future from the convention center to the PAC to the Pavilion.

https://wacotrib.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/consultant-recommends-1-500-seat-performing-arts-center-for-waco/article_07a3a8f4-83b9-11ec-beb4-f327ae000077.html

I saw that and was excited by the possibilities! Having a modern, rigged theater of that medium capacity would be a wonderful asset to Waco.

Mr Tulip said:

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I saw that and was excited by the possibilities! Having a modern, rigged theater of that medium capacity would be a wonderful asset to Waco.

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I'm more excited for that than I am the arena and I'm stoked for TINY!

I wish they would build it near the Convention Center and have it somehow connected similar to San Antonio.
I am still an advocate of expanding the convention center to be able to host larger conventions.

Waco is so central to everything and with the new riverfront is poised to be a great place to host large gatherings! More restaurants, close hotels, large meeting spaces, Magnolia - all right there!

baylorguy09 said:

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I wish they would build it near the Convention Center and have it somehow connected similar to San Antonio.
I am still an advocate of expanding the convention center to be able to host larger conventions.

Waco is so central to everything and with the new riverfront is poised to be a great place to host large gatherings! More restaurants, close hotels, large meeting spaces, Magnolia - all right there!

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It's about .28 miles from the convention center.

Yeah, it .6 miles from the arena to the convention center. Put the PAC in between and that's a wonderful stretch to host conventions.

Someone mentioned in another thread, but a street car line from the BSB or so to the convention center would be incredible. Convention center to Bagby and UParks is 1.4 miles. Seems like it'd be money well spent long-term, especially if Waco could somehow pull in some money from the infrastructure and jobs act (presumably most of those funds are spoken for, just thinking aloud).

Quick Google search shows streetcar +/- $50 million per mile. So, $75ish milllion for convention center to Bagby. Seems like it's be a great long term piece of infrastructure with potential expansion to East Waco an easy possibility.

I've heard rumors but have never seen photos. Thanks for sharing!

BylrFan said:

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Beardown1919 said:

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Quick Google search shows streetcar +/- $50 million per mile. So, $75ish milllion for convention center to Bagby. Seems like it's be a great long term piece of infrastructure with potential expansion to East Waco an easy possibility.

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people often forget we used to have such things in waco

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It is difficult to forget what you do not remember.

BylrFan said:

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Beardown1919 said:

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Quick Google search shows streetcar +/- $50 million per mile. So, $75ish milllion for convention center to Bagby. Seems like it's be a great long term piece of infrastructure with potential expansion to East Waco an easy possibility.

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people often forget we used to have such things in waco

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It's going to cost us $50M per mile to replicate this era of good feeling? Try a tunnel instead.

It'd be dumb to do it for nostalgia.

Practically it may not be a terrible idea. Far from my expertise, but I could definitely see it adding to what's developing downtown and further help connect campus and Waco.

Light rail is too expensive outside of dense areas where urban density results in high ridership.

El Paso did a really cool and nostalgic street car project recently that cost them $100M for a 5 mile stretch. The first year, it attracted 200,000 riders (that's roughly 550ppl/day) at $1.50/person fare which put ticket revenue at about $350K annually. At that rate, it'll take 285 years (yes, 285) just to recoup the upfront investment cost. (Not accounting for inflation.) But that also doesn't cover overhead/operating expenses.

A big part of the El Paso pitch - and any pitch that would occur elsewhere- was that the project would increase development along the rail line. Said development would contribute far more to tax revenue than the ticket revenue but the point is the same - these things have to have a high ridership (15-20K/day on average) to even begin to make logistical sense. Waco isn't even close to the population density to have that. Cool idea but just not realistic.

Oak Cliff's experience may be instructive here...

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2021/02/the-council-nearly-killed-the-oak-cliff-streetcar-then-they-realized-they-cant/

Like many folks of my generation, I love few things more than a pedestrian-friendly downtown, but the numbers are just really difficult to justify.

Great article and fully agree with the final recommendation. I'm a fan of DART, but there's so much between station. Being able to take the street car to go the final short distance would be ideal.

I believe the trains would pick up steam around special events and concerts. Unfortunately, then you have the rest of the year to kill.

The fact is it won't glide in Waco.

Also there are more affordable alternatives to street cars, such as motor trolleys with special routes. They can be removed and put to other purposes when not needed and are a fraction of the cost to maintain.

Everybody is big into rail for political purposes: it's to change the American mindset so that we get away from the idea of individualism and freedom, as represented by the automobile and move it toward the idea of the collective and homogeneity with the exclusion of identity, which is pushed through mass transportation.

Yogi said:

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I believe the trains would pick up steam around special events and concerts. Unfortunately, then you have the rest of the year to kill.

The fact is it won't glide in Waco.

Also there are more affordable alternatives to street cars, such as motor trolleys with special routes. They can be removed and put to other purposes when not needed and are a fraction of the cost to maintain.

Everybody is big into rail for political purposes: it's to change the American mindset so that we get away from the idea of individualism and freedom, as represented by the automobile and move it toward the idea of the collective and homogeneity with the exclusion of identity, which is pushed through mass transportation.

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That definitely took a turn in the last paragraph. I'm guessing you don't live in a major metro with crazy traffic? Never considered that trains were some indoctrination...I just don't like sitting in traffic when I can ride the train. They make a lot of sense in densely populated areas in terms of efficiency...especially when we can't build roads big enough fast enough.

I will add we need more dense population in urban areas as more and more people move in because we're going to run out of space for urban sprawl. Mass transit helps tremendously with this. Not necessarily on topic for the PAC or even a Waco streetcar, but infrastructure of mass transit shouldn't be any type of political indoctrination.

There's plenty of land for sprawl. The problem is circulating resources.

It would be better for growth to be spread out; however, the real growth is where the money is: in the established metropolises, which, like the SEC, will eventually leave everyone else behind.

It's why it gets harder for a small city like Waco to compete for public funding, which is usually channeled to faster growing areas where it is immediately needed or to where there is the most possible political kickback and gain (usually the same areas).

The bigger other cities get, the more political pull they have and the less pull small, relatively stagnant areas like Waco have as they progressively lose more and more of their political influence.

And that is important when fighting for infrastructure dollars.

There are still places in town where you can find tracks in the road.