Who Else Is Doing It?
When you propose a new streetcar
line for your city or town, someone will probably ask, “Is anyone else doing
this?” The answer is yes. Lots of places are, so many it is hard to keep
track of them all.
Other than the new streetcar in
Portland, Oregon, all the existing lines use Heritage or Vintage equipment.
To keep things simple, we will refer to them all as “Heritage lines” here.
These Heritage lines are of two types: stand-alone operations, which are not
integrated into the rest of the local public transit system, and integrated
lines. All the lines covered here are “common carriers,” which people take
to go somewhere, not just for a trolley ride.
The stand-alone lines operate
mostly for tourists, although they do provide some local transportation to
residents. They include:
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Detroit, Michigan. This was the
first purpose-built Heritage streetcar line in the U.S. It opened in 1976.
The narrow-gauge line is 1.2 miles long, running through downtown Detroit
from the Renaissance Center to Grand Circus Park. It has a wonderful
collection of nine antique streetcars, including three built in the 1890s.
The hours of operation are from 8 AM to 6 PM weekdays and 10 AM to 6 PM on
weekends. The fare is 50 cents, and average daily ridership is about 150
in spring and summer and 60 in winter.
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Tucson, Arizona. Tucson’s Old
Pueblo Trolley runs for 1.1 miles from the main gate of the University of
Arizona to downtown; many of its passengers are students at the
university. This streetcar line is operated solely by volunteers, and has
just one streetcar currently in service, a 1953 Hankai Electric Railway
car from Japan. At present, service is offered only on Friday, Saturday
and Sunday. However, the line is to be extended to the Rio Nuevo
historical area, at which point daily operation is likely. Three more
streetcars are being restored for service, including a 1936 tram from
Brussels, Belgium and a 1912 American Car Company streetcar from St.
Louis.
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Charlotte, North Carolina. At
present, the non-profit Charlotte Trolley runs weekdays only over a
1.2-mile non-electrified line (the car tows a generator). But the city of
Charlotte has invested $10 million in the operation, which will extend the
line 1.5 miles through (literally!) the Convention Center and into
downtown; the whole line will also be electrified. When the extension is
completed, Charlotte’s five streetcars will operate seven days a week. The
fleet includes a 1922 Birney Safety car, a 1927 Brill Birney, a 1949 St.
Louis PCC, a 1927 Southern Public Utilities car and a 1914 United Electric
Car from Preston, England. Amazingly, new apartment buildings,
condominiums and restaurants are already being built with the streetcar
line as the focus. Current ridership is about 200 people per day; that
should increase substantially when the extension opens.
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San Pedro, California. San Pedro
will soon begin operation of one of the great icons from the streetcar
era—the famous “Red Cars” of Pacific Electric. Intended to serve
passengers from the cruise ships that dock in San Pedro, this 1.5-mile
line will operate four days per week with three Pacific Electric cars—one
original and two newly-built replicas. The planned fare is 25 cents, and
the new line is to begin operations before the end of 2002.
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Little Rock, Arkansas. Service
is to begin in 2003 on a 2.2-mile line from North Little Rock to downtown.
Three Heritage cars are being built by Gomaco in Iowa. Fares are likely to
be 50 cents, operation will be seven days a week and ridership is
estimated at 1500 daily.
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Several cities that have Light
Rail lines also operate Heritage streetcars over portions of the Light
Rail route. MAX in Portland, Oregon, runs replicas of its famous “Council
Crest” cars from Lloyd Center to Downtown Portland on Saturdays and
Sundays from March through December. The fare is free and the cars carry
around 6000 people each day. Two Council Crest cars also now operate on
weekends on Portland’s new streetcar line. San Jose, California, also runs
historic cars through the downtown, on the Light Rail tracks, charging
regular Light Rail fares of $1.25.
In addition to these stand-alone
streetcar lines, a number of cities have streetcar lines that are tied in
with the regular transit system. Interestingly, some are
“survivors”—streetcar lines that simply never quit or received new
equipment, and with the passage of time now find themselves numbered among
the Heritage lines. We have already touched on one of these, perhaps the
most famous: New Orleans’ St. Charles Avenue line. That line, with its fleet
of Perley Thomas streetcars built in the 1920s, is fully a part of the New
Orleans transit system, carrying some 23,000 passengers each day for a fare
of $1.25. It has also become one of New Orleans’ major tourist attractions,
almost on a par with San Francisco’s famous cable cars.
Not only has the St. Charles
Avenue line survived, it is so successful that it has sparked a general
streetcar revival in New Orleans. In 1988, the city opened a new Riverfront
line. Now, the Canal Street streetcar line is being restored. About five
miles of new track with 23 replica Perley Thomas cars will run from the
Esplanade stop of the Riverfront line to the famous New Orleans cemeteries
(it will also connect with the St. Charles Avenue line). And when that is
open, New Orleans intends to restore the famous “streetcar named Desire,” on
a new line that will connect most of the city’s tourist attractions.
Evidently, a city that thrives on tourism has found streetcars a good
investment.
Another “survivor” Heritage
streetcar line is to be found in Boston, Massachusetts. Many years ago, the
“T,” as the Boston transit system is universally known, built what they
called a high-speed trolley line, connecting the Ashmont Heavy Rail Red Line
station with the community of Mattapan, about two-and-a-half miles away. In
the 1940s, the line was assigned a group of PCC cars. And then, as if by
magic, it all just froze in time. The same PCC cars are still running today,
from 4:30 AM every morning to 1:30 AM the next day, carrying about 7000
passengers daily. The T has tried for years to close the Ashmont–Mattapan
line, but community pressure has stopped them every time. The people the
line serves—who are mostly poor and mostly black—love their streetcars and
are not about to let anyone take them away. Recently, the T relented and
began rebuilding the old PCC cars, restoring their beautiful original color
scheme and getting them ready for their second half-century of service.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia work is
underway to restore an old streetcar line, Route 15-Girard Avenue, which has
been served by buses since 1992. SEPTA, the Philadelphia transit system, has
decided to use restored PCC cars rather than modern Light Rail Vehicles on
Route 15, and it is now rebuilding about 20 PCCs. As in Boston, the “new”
cars will be entering their second half-century of service. In addition to
local neighborhoods, Route 15-Girard Avenue runs past a number of historic
churches and the famous Philadelphia Zoo, so the restored line may serve
tourists as well as residents.
In addition to survivors, a number
of new streetcar lines are also fully integrated components of the local
transit system. One of the most interesting is the new Heritage streetcar
line in the small city (90,000) of Kenosha, Wisconsin. When the old American
Motors plant right in the heart of downtown Kenosha closed and then was
demolished, it left a potentially disastrous hole in the city. But a young
city official named Joe McCarthy saw an opportunity. Guided by his vision,
Kenosha built a Heritage streetcar line in the form of a loop that connects
the train station and the waterfront, running alongside the vacant land. The
line cost just $4 million, including five PCC streetcars.
And it is working! New housing
developments are going up where the car factory once stood; their residents
can take the streetcar from their doorstep to catch commuter trains to
Chicago. A new museum has opened at the waterfront, and it has almost no
parking; its visitors come by streetcar. Much of the downtown business
district lies on or a short walk from the streetcar line. Most Kenosha bus
lines interchange with the trolley.
Tragically, Joe McCarthy died of a
heart attack just weeks after the streetcar line began service. But its
success will be a memorial to him for many decades to come.
One of the first integrated
streetcar lines is Seattle’s Route 99, the Waterfront line, which began
operating in 1982. The 2.5-mile line has five former Melbourne, Australia
streetcars built in 1927. It operates seven days a week from 7 AM to 11 PM,
with cars running every twenty minutes. Fares are $1 to $1.25, depending on
time of day, and Route 99 is fully integrated with the Seattle bus system.
The southern end of the line is across the street from the International
District station, which is a major terminal for the trolleybus subway.
Commuters make up a portion of the 400 average weekday riders; Saturday
ridership is about 800 and Sunday's approaches 600. Some downtown special
events have seen the line carry several thousand people on a single evening.
Spring, 2002, is scheduled to see
the opening of Tampa, Florida’s new Heritage streetcar line, the TECO line,
named for the Tampa Electric Company that used to operate the city’s many
streetcars. This 2.3 mile line, which will connect Tampa with the Ybor City
entertainment district, is being built and will be operated solely with
private funds. It will have eight replica Birney double-truck streetcars,
plus two Vintage Birneys which are now being restored. The large fleet will
enable the operators to revive an old streetcar motto, “Always a car in
sight.”
The TECO line will run seven days
a week, from 10 AM to 10 PM, with later service on weekends. Patronage is
projected at 250,000 people per year, which may prove conservative as
significant development is already taking place along the line. TECO intends
to have a transfer arrangement with Tampa’s HARTline buses.
Perhaps the most successful of all
the new integrated streetcar lines is San Francisco’s F line, also known as
the Market Street Railway. Years ago, when San Francisco built a subway
under Market Street, it left the streetcar tracks on the surface in place.
In 1983, the Chamber of Commerce used those tracks for a Historic Trolley
Festival, running a number of the city’s antique streetcars. The festival
was so popular it was repeated in subsequent years. Then, in 1995, the old
cars began regular service on Market Street, running from the Castro
District downtown to the Financial District near the Ferry Terminal.
In the year 2000, a new line
opened, the F line. Also using historic streetcars (Vintage cars, actual
antiques), the F line continues the Market Street line on new trackage along
the waterfront to Fisherman’s Wharf. The F line was an immediate huge
success, carrying so many people the cars were crowded with standees. Today,
ridership on the F line (a six-mile route, including Market Street) is
19,200 on an average weekday, 10,000 on Saturdays and 9,500 on Sundays.
Service hours are 6:00 AM to 12:30 AM.
The F line’s fleet of Vintage
streetcars is unique. Now made up of 25 streetcars in regular service, with
4 more undergoing restoration, it includes car 578-S, built in 1895 and one
of the oldest operable streetcars in the world; Car No.1, the first
streetcar bought by San Francisco’s municipally-owned streetcar system; and
streetcars from Oporto, Portugal; Melbourne, Australia; Hiroshima and Osaka,
Japan; Moscow, Russia; and Blackpool, England. The everyday operating fleet
relies on Peter Witt cars (first developed in Cleveland, Ohio) from Milan,
Italy and restored PCC cars. The latter are painted in the color schemes of
cities across America that once ran PCCs on their own streetcar lines.
As a New York Times reporter
wrote,
While the F line is fast
becoming one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions, it may
turn out to be much more. Day afier day, it is reminding visitors of
something they may have forgotten: that trolleys are a good way to get
around congested cities.6
Some of these streetcar lines are
part of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), which are broad-scale efforts
to bring back urban areas which have seen better days. BIDs are generally
non-profit corporations which bring together volunteer efforts, city
government and historic preservation groups to gain resources and provide
direction to local rehabilitation movements. Streetcars are a natural “fit”
with BIDs, because, like other rail transit, streetcars promote economic
development. As Greg Hnedak, one of the planners of Memphis’ Main Street
Trolley put it, “Buses are cheaper, but when you put rails down, you have
made a permanent commitment, and developers can see that commitment. Rail
lines become development corridors.”7
As this survey illustrates,
streetcar lines that are integrated into the local transit system are
generally more useful and attract greater ridership than those which stand
alone. Streetcars are, after all, real transportation, and should be treated
like other transportation. They perform a real function for local residents,
and should not be seen merely as a tourist attraction (though they do also
attract tourists). This is true whether the streetcar line is actually owned
and operated by the local transit authority, as in San Francisco, or is a
separate entity. Separate need not mean disconnected, and should not. Both
the streetcar operator and the transit system benefit when the two are
integrated as if they were part of a seamless system, at least from the
passenger's point of view.
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