Lowell — Streetcar Museum Opens

Rail Transit Online, March 2005

A detailed analysis has begun into a proposed extension of the existing 1.2-mile Lowell National Historic Park heritage street line to the Regional Transit Authority’s Gallager intermodal transit terminal on Thorndike Street.  The line could serve several of the city’s largest traffic generators, depending on the route chosen, including residential areas, sports stadiums or the University of Massachusetts campus.  The nine-month, $572,000 federally funded study will include public input.  Lowell's assistant city manager for planning and development, J. Matthew Coggins, says the Federal Transit Administration and National Park Service might split the entire capital cost, estimated at between $23.4 million and $52.7 million depending on the route selected.  “Nobody wants to be tackling pie-in-the-sky projects, but there seems to be a very viable funding source to get this done,” Coggins told the Lowell Sun.  An initial study completed three years ago found that construction of the project would be feasible.  The tourist trolley opened in 1984, 49 years after Lowell’s streetcar system was scrapped.