Chicago — Streetcars May Return

Rail Transit Online, February 2003

Forty-five years after the last PCC streetcar was banished from the streets of Chicago, an influential congressman who represents the city’s southwest side is ready to bring back a modern version to the Ogden Avenue-Cermak Road corridor.  Rep. William O. Lipinski, whose father was a streetcar operator, says heritage replica trolleys would provide a direct link to the Loop, connect with existing “L” stations and would stimulate residential and business development in the economically depressed area, which interestingly enough is not in his district.  Lipinski, a Democrat, sees the line running from the North Riverside Park Mall to the West Loop or Navy Pier, and he intends to push for federal funding as part of the TEA-21 reauthorization, possibly as a demonstration project.  The congressman has already held discussions with Chicago Transit Authority officials, who previously have expressed support for bus rapid transit in the same corridor.  But with Lipinski in a key position to obtain millions in transportation money for a number of planned transit upgrades in Chicago, top CTA leaders are unwilling to torpedo the trolleys.  “The fact that Congressman Lipinski is as interested as he clearly is, is exciting,” CTA President Frank Kruesi, a top advisor to Mayor Richard Daley, told the Sun-Times.  “It's way early to be able to make informed judgments about what would make the most sense along that corridor and how those alternatives would stack up to other alternative projects.”  However, Kruesi still believes in BRT because of its lower initial cost and its ability to be converted to rail at some future time.  Neither Lipinkski nor the CTA have developed any cost estimates but the congressman is aware that it would be expensive and would have to be funded over many years, possibly up to a decade.  In the early 1990s Mayor Daley promoted the $775-million Central Area Circulator, a downtown streetcar system that failed to get the required state funding and was then determined to be not viable politically.  It was cancelled in 1995.