Streetcars in North America

Electric streetcars, often called trams outside North America, once served transit needs in scores of North American cities. Most municipal systems were dismantled in the mid-20th century.

Today, only New Orleans and Toronto still operate streetcar networks that are essentially unchanged in their layout and mode of operation.

Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco have rebuilt their streetcar systems as light rail systems. Buffalo, Calgary, Dallas, Edmonton, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Ottawa, San Diego, and St. Louis have installed new light rail systems, parts of which run along historic streetcar corridors and in a few cases feature mixed-traffic operation like a streetcar. Portland, Oregon, has experimented with modern light rail and modern streetcar systems.

Edmonton, Seattle, and Vancouver have restored a small number of streetcars to run as a heritage line for tourists.

History

The world's first streetcar lines opened in 1832 from downtown Manhattan to Harlem by the New York and Harlem Railroad, and in 1834 in New Orleans.

Streetcars contributed to congestion on the surface roads, which led to elevated or buried lines. Boston created the first subway line with its Tremont Street tunnel. The automobile increased congestion and streetcars, with their static right-of-way, became an increasing part of the problem. City buses were seen as more economical and flexible: a bus could carry a number of people similar to that in a streetcar without tracks and associated infrastructure. Most U.S. streetcar systems were removed by the 1950s. Cambridge, Mass., and San Francisco, Calif,. removed the tracks but kept the electric infrastructure to run electrified "trackless trolley" buses.

The survival of the lines that made it past the 1950s was aided by the introduction of the successful PCC car (President's Conference Committee car) in the 1940s and 1950s in all these cities except New Orleans.

urviving systems

Not all streetcars systems were removed; the San Francisco cable cars and New Orleans' streetcars are the most famous examples in the United States. More conventional streetcar operations survived complete abandonment in Boston, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco in the U.S., together with Toronto in Canada. The Newark, Philadelphia, and Boston systems ran into subways downtown, while the Pittsburgh and San Francisco systems had tunnels under large hills that had no acceptable road alternatives for bus replacements. The St. Charles Avenue line in New Orleans runs down the park-like "neutral ground" in the center of St. Charles Avenue. The only system without these alternatives to street-running to survive was Toronto's. All of these systems have received new equipment. Some of these cities have also rehabilitated lines, and Newark, New Orleans, and San Francisco have added trackage in recent years. In Philadelphia, a former trolley line that was "bustituted" recently resumed trolley service using rebuilt historic cars.

In Canada, most cities once had a streetcar system, but today Toronto's TTC is the only traditional operator of streetcars, and maintains the Western Hemisphere's most extensive system in terms of track length, number of cars, and ridership. The city added two lines in recent years, and is upgrading its other lines. Expansion is planned in combination with the city's plans for the rejuvenation of its waterfront.

Nelson, British Columbia, a small town to the north of Spokane, Washington, has rebuilt and runs a restored tram that once originally ran in that city.

New systems

Some cities have built light rail systems, some of which operate partially in the right-of-way of city streets. Other new systems are genuine tramways, such as in New Orleans and San Francisco, although the term "streetcar" is the only name used by the residents there. The pioneering light rail system in Edmonton, Alberta, which used mostly European technology, does not use street running, and tunneling in the central area accounted for much of the expense of the system. It was soon followed by installations in San Diego and Calgary that used similar vehicles but which avoided the expense of tunnels by using partial street running instead.

In 2000, Kenosha, Wisconsin became the first city in North America to open a modern streetcar system since the heyday of the PCC streetcar. The Kenosha system is a downtown circulator also serving government offices, the upscale HarborPark recreational/cultural/residential district, and public bus and Metra rail service.

In 2001, Portland, Oregon, which already boasted a successful light rail system, MAX, opened the Portland Streetcar. This serves as a downtown circulator between the central city core, the trendy Pearl District and Northwest Portland, Portland State University, and a new mixed-use development along the Willamette River shoreline. Running entirely on streets, it complements the MAX light rail system, which also runs along streets in central Portland, but which covers longer distance along routes segregated from vehicular traffic.

In 2007, transit authorities in Seattle, Washington opened the South Lake Union Streetcar, connecting the neighborhood south of Lake Union with the transit core of downtown Seattle. Residents of the area began referring to the system as the "South Lake Union Trolley" giving it the amusing but unfortunate acronym of "SLUT". [cite web
last = Murakami
first = Kery
title = SLUT -- Streetcar's unfortunate acronym seems here to stay
publisher = Seattle Post-Intelligencer
date = Tuesday, September 18, 2007; Last updated September 20, 2007 1:31 p.m. PT
url = http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332081_slut18.html
accessdate = 2008-01-26 ]

New light rail systems have since opened in many other cities, starting with the ground-breaking system in Edmonton , and now including Baltimore, Buffalo, Calgary, Dallas (DART), Denver, Edmonton, Houston, Jersey City-Hoboken, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Ottawa, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, St Louis, Salt Lake City, San Jose, and Vancouver. Additionally, all the surviving PCC operators have replaced their PCC cars with light rail vehicles, although restored vintage PCC cars are still in regular operation on Boston's MBTA Red line Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line, and on San Francisco's F Market line, a line popular among tourists. This line recently underwent an expansion to the Fisherman's Wharf area and a second line along the Embarcadero to the east is in the planning stages.

Heritage streetcar systems

Heritage streetcar systems are used in public transit service, combining light rail efficiency with America's nostalgia interests. Proponents claim that using a simple, reliable form of transit from 50 or 100 years ago can bring history to life for 21st century Americans. Systems are operating successfully in over 20 U.S. cities, and are in planning or construction stages in 40 more. Heritage systems currently operate in Charlotte, North Carolina; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Tampa, Florida; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana are among the larger.

In the Canadian province of British Columbia, Vancouver has the heritage streetcar system that will be expanded to cover the south downtown area, and in Nelson the restored "Streetcar 23" runs along the lakeside.

Over 50 years after the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway, the revival of streetcar operations in New Orleans is credited by many to the worldwide fame gained by the streetcars made by the Perley A. Thomas Car Works. These cars were operating on the system's Desire route in the 1947 play and later movie of the same name. Some of the original cars have been carefully restored locally and continue to operate in 2006.

Examples in North America include San Pedro, Little Rock, Dallas, Denver, Memphis, Tampa, Seattle, Charlotte, the new Canal Street line in New Orleans, and the reintroduction of the historic Girard Street line in Philadelphia. Atlanta is also considering an historic streetcar to connect the downtown tourist attractions with the King Center area just east of Downtown.

Conspiracy

Many North American cities abandoned their streetcar systems in the mid-twentieth century, largely as a result of the popularity of the automobile and government policies favoring it. This has prompted a popular conspiracy theory which touts a that a union of automobile, oil, and tire industries shut down tram and streetcar systems in order to further the use of buses and private automobiles. The struggling Depression-era streetcar companies were bought up by this union of competitors who, over the following decades, dismantled most of the North American streetcar systems.

Notes