Streetcars in North America - New Systems

New Systems

Several North American 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, with smaller vehicles and mixed-traffic street running (no separation from other vehicles), similar to those in New Orleans and San Francisco, although the term streetcar—rather than the European term, tramway—is the name used by the residents there. The pioneering light rail system in Edmonton, which used mostly European technology, does not use street running, and tunneling in the central area accounted for much of the high expense of building that 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 surface alignments and, on a few sections, even partial street running, in reserved lanes (restricted to transit vehicles only).

Prior to 2001, the new streetcar systems opened in North America were heritage lines, alternatively known as vintage trolley or ‘historic’ trolley lines. Several cities built new heritage streetcar lines in the 1980s and 1990s, some served only on weekends while others operate daily, year-round and all day, providing true public transit service as opposed to being a tourist- or history-oriented excursion service. New streetcar systems providing daily, year-round service included ones opened in Seattle (the Waterfront Streetcar) (1982), Galveston (1988), Dallas (McKinney Avenue Transit Authority) (1989), Memphis (1993) and Kenosha, Wisconsin (2000). All of these were newly constructed systems, but all are served by historic streetcars or replicas of historic streetcars (although the Seattle Waterfront line has since closed). Others have since opened in Tampa and Little Rock; see Heritage streetcar systems, below.

In 2001, Portland, Oregon, which already boasted a successful light rail system (MAX), became the first city in North America in more than 50 years to open a new streetcar system served by modern vehicles, with the opening of the Portland Streetcar. It uses low-floor cars built in the Czech Republic, but the system's first US-built streetcar was delivered in 2009. The line serves as a downtown circulator between the central city core, the Pearl District and Northwest Portland, Portland State University, and in 2005 was extended to the South Waterfront district, a new mixed-use development along the Willamette River shoreline. Running almost entirely on streets and without any separation from other traffic on most sections, it complements the MAX light rail system, which covers much longer distances and serves as a regional, higher-capacity rail system for the metropolitan area. The MAX system also runs along streets in central Portland, but is separated from traffic (other than buses) even in those areas, via reserved light-rail-only lanes. Construction of a second streetcar line, to the city's east side, began in August 2009.

The new Portland system and several of the new heritage streetcar systems have been intended, in part, as a way of influencing property development in the corridors served, in such a way as to increase density while attracting residents interested in relatively car-free living. The Portland Streetcar is considered to have been very successful in this regard.

North America's second modern streetcar system opened in 2007 in Seattle, where the city's transportation department led the project to construct the South Lake Union Streetcar, but has contracted with local transit authority King County Metro to operate the service. Connecting the neighborhood south of Lake Union with the transit core of downtown Seattle, it operates every 15 minutes and is served by three low-floor streetcars of the same type as some of those in Portland. Residents of the area began referring to the system as the "South Lake Union Trolley" giving it the amusing but unfortunate acronym of "SLUT". Subsequently (in 2009), Seattle has also opened a light rail system (Central Link). Expansion of the streetcar system is planned, with a line serving First Hill under construction.

A new rail line which opened in Tacoma, Washington in 2003, Tacoma Link, is sometimes referred to as a streetcar line because of its short length and use of single vehicles (rather than trains) of the same type as the low-floor streetcars used in Portland. However, the line is separated from other traffic over nearly its entire length, making it less a streetcar than light rail, which is what its operator (Sound Transit) considers it to be.

New tram systems have now opened in many other cities, starting with the ground-breaking system in Edmonton in 1978, and now including Baltimore, Buffalo, Calgary, Charlotte, Dallas (DART), Denver, Edmonton, Houston, Greater Jersey City (HBLR), Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Ottawa, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, St Louis, Salt Lake City, San Diego and San Jose.

Additionally, all of 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 was extended to the Fisherman's Wharf area in 2000, and a second line along the Embarcadero to the east is in the planning stages.