Glendale — Glendale Trolley Study

Rail Transit Online, September 2005

The Glendale city council on Aug. 3 voted unanimously to spend $25,000 on the first phase of a four-part study into a proposed streetcar system serving the central business district.  URS Corp. will look at both rail and rubber-tire technology and determine the purpose and function of the system.  “We will work with council, staff and the community to be able to define the nature of the transit system so that we don't get clear down the road of a very expensive study and find out we don't want it,” City Manager Jim Starbird told the News-Press.  “This is really a scoping study to find out what it is you want, with a little bit of feasibility built in so you can have an idea of what the eventual magnitude of costs are.” 

Glendale is located northeast of downtown Los Angeles.  The study will be completed in November, after which the council can decide to continue the work or cancel the project.  Succeeding phases would look at potential routes, preliminary cost estimates, ridership and funding sources.  Initially, Brand Boulevard — which once had a thriving Pacific Electric line running down the street’s median — was considered the prime candidate for the trolley but other parallel thoroughfares may be considered.  There is also the possibility of running the line to the city’s Metrolink commuter rail station and possibly into neighboring Burbank.  The developer of a new downtown open-air shopping center is anxious to have a rail line that would run through his property.  The new six-year federal transportation bill included $836,000 for the trolley.