Newport residents got a chance this week to inspect the trolley that the city of Yachats bought using grants last November and has been using it for special events and on weekends. (Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle)By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle
NEWPORT – Plans to bring a trolley to Newport are rolling forward after community members signaled they are on board with the idea – although details about exactly what routes and stops are undecided.
On Tuesday evening, Newport residents curiously peaked inside a green trolley parked outside the Performing Arts Center. The windows offer an expansive view and the interior is wooden with benches that can seat 16 passengers at a time. The vehicle belongs to the city of Yachats, but Newport could soon have their own.
Several cities on the Oregon coast already have trolleys and next week the city of Yachats and the Yachats Chamber of Commerce are launching a Thursday-through-Sunday service using a $236,000 hybrid trolley delivered last November.
Nick Mesler, a transportation consultant with AKS Engineering, walks Newport residents through route possibilities for a tourist trolley during a community meeting Tuesday night. (Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle)About 40 people attended a city open house Tuesday to give their input. They answered a survey and wrote down their ideas, frustrations and feedback about how much a trolley ride should cost, where it should go and how often it should run.
Bringing a trolley to Newport has been a possibility for more than a decade and could alleviate some issues during peak tourist season, said Nick Mesler, a transportation consultant with AKS Engineering. During the summer months, there’s congestion along U.S. Highway 101, limited parking on the Bayfront and Nye Beach and steep hills make walking between destinations difficult.
Data from the city’s tourism promoter Discover Newport showed that many visitors stay in a single district and don’t move around town.
“An opportunity that may come from trolley programs such as this is it allows folks to visit one area, hop on a trolley, get to the next area pretty quickly, and continue to spend dollars, invest in the local community, support local businesses and make it overall easier and a good experience for tourists,” Mesler said.
While a trolley would be used by both tourists and locals, it would not operate like a traditional transit system and would likely hit key tourist spots like the Bayfront, Nye Beach, South Beach and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
Decades ago, a horse drawn carriage would take people to the Bayfront and the Beach, said business owner Fran Mathews. And things haven’t changed much since then, she said.
“The idea of having a trolley during our peak season makes great sense, because that’s what many of us in this community work for many years to figure out – like our parking meters on the Bayfront – we don’t need a trolley in the wintertime, because you can bowl on the sidewalks down there and not hit anybody.”
Participants in a city of Newport meeting on a possible tourist trolley wrote down their thoughts about routes and how they would use it during an open house Tuesday night. (Shayla Escudero/Lincoln Chronicle)Matthews hoped the trolley could also be used by business employees since leaving their cars in Nye Beach or by the Bayfront further contributed to parking congestion.
No decisions have been made about the route, stops, cost of ridership or what type of vehicle would be selected.
When it came to how often the trolley would make its rounds, there is a trade-off, Mesler said. While he had received feedback that every hour may be too long, a higher frequency meant that the trolley may not be able to serve as great of an area.
A trolley would likely be funded by transient lodging taxes and grants, following in the footsteps of Yachats, said the city’s beautification and tourism program coordinator Willow Ryon.
The city of Newport collects a 12 percent room tax on all hotels, motels, campgrounds and vacation rentals. Forty six percent of the tax collected is used for tourism promotion and facility purposes. Last year, the city collected $3.7 million in transient lodging taxes.
During the summer, AKS engineering will time routes and drive streets to map out the possible trolley system. Using data they collect from the outreach events and their assessments of Newport’s streets they will come back with recommendations of what type of vehicle Newport should buy, possible service routes and cost estimates.
The report will be in front of the city council in September. Community members can still offer feedback in the survey until the end of June through this form.
- Shayla Escudero is an enterprise reporter for the Lincoln Chronicle covering local governments, education, housing and social services and can be reached at [email protected]
Are these trolleys ADA friendly? Can a person riding an electric wheelchair get on one of these trolleys? I’m all in favor of this is available?
The taxes collected from the hotels and motels is going to a service that caters to tourism. What about the taxpaying residents of Newport? We do not even get free parking in our city. When do the Newport residents get a “perk” for dealing with the long lines at the stop lights and stores? I want to move, and contribute my taxes to a city that cares for its taxpayers, who are actually supporting the city.