{"id":2767,"date":"2008-02-09T20:00:19","date_gmt":"2008-02-10T01:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2008-02-09T21:12:58","modified_gmt":"2008-02-10T02:12:58","slug":"draft-streetcars-and-light-rail-transit-part-1-north-american-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/02\/09\/draft-streetcars-and-light-rail-transit-part-1-north-american-context\/","title":{"rendered":"Streetcars and LRT: the North American context"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nLos Angeles Metro Gold Line, Pasadena, California. <\/em><\/p>\n

The light rail renaissance that has taken place across North America has taken a few interesting directions since 1978, when what is considered the first of these new light rail systems, Edmonton’s, opened. The boom continued through the 1980s and 1990s, but has slowed down, with fewer cities building new lines or extending existing ones.<\/p>\n

There are three basic categories of light rail systems now in existence in Canada and the United States. The first of these is the legacy streetcar system, such as those in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Newark and San Francisco. In these cities, a small “core” streetcar network survived because buses were unsuitable replacements for their remaining systems – all featured lengthy tunnel or subway sections, such as Boston’s pioneering 1897 streetcar subway, or the tunnels under local mountains in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. San Francisco has expanded its legacy system to include the new T-Third Line<\/a>. Modernized and often extended, these act more like rapid transit routes than your friendly neighbourhood streetcar, with names like Newark City Subway<\/a>, Green Line<\/a>, or MUNI Metro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nPCC on Market Street, part of San Francisco’s legacy street railway. <\/em><\/p>\n

The second type is the modern rapid transit light rail system, for which most were built in the 1980s and 1990s. Light rail trains mostly run in exclusive rights-of-way or centre reservations, with minimal street running. The closest of these systems to Toronto is the Buffalo Metrorail<\/a>, where light rail trains run in a subway for most of their route, and emerges to the surface in a transit mall downtown (it was to be part of a multi-branched system with lines to Tondawanda and the North Campus of the University of Buffalo, but budget cuts and suburban opposition scuttled these). Other examples include Calgary, San Diego (two other early pioneers), Baltimore, and St. Louis. Los Angeles is also actively building new light rail lines to augment is subway, many retracing the routes of the once-grand Pacific Electric network.<\/p>\n


\nA modern light rail train in downtown Baltimore. <\/em><\/p>\n


\nAn ex-Toronto PCC in Kenosha. <\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, there’s the new trend of operating short streetcar circulators as tourist attractions and\/or downtown shuttles. Examples include Memphis<\/a>, Tampa<\/a>, Little Rock<\/a>, and of course, Kenosha, Wisconsin.<\/a> Most of these streetcar lines use real or replica heritage streetcars, such as PCCs or Birneys. Some of these routes have been effective as a catalyst of downtown renewal. They often cost less than half than of a “real” light rail system to build and start-up ($20-35 million per mile, compared to $50-60 million for a light rail line).<\/p>\n

More cities are joining this latter group, including Albuquerque, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Miami, who see these streetcars as more than a toonerville trolley.
\nMany of these proposals would use modern vehicles, rather than vintage or replica cars, using the experience of the Portland Streetcar<\/a> (which connects to the regional MAX light rail) as a model. Indeed, Charlotte, North Carolina, is now building a light rail system several years after opening a downtown streetcar. According to a recent article in the Urban Land Institute<\/em> magazine (Jeffrey Spivak, Streetcars are Back<\/em>, January 2008), these modern streetcars are shorter (with a capacity of one-third less per car), and slower compared to many modern light rail vehicles. These short routes are easier to get support taxpayer support for, but have the potential for becoming the starting point for a much larger network.<\/p>\n

Compared to all of these other cities, Toronto’s experience is unique, though it comes closest to that of San Francisco. Currently, Toronto does not have a modern light rail system, its system is based completely on a legacy street railway that did not have unique characteristics that prevented complete abandonment, such as a streetcar subway. With frequent stops, surface running, and by connecting shopping, residential areas, tourist attractions and other modes of transport in the downtown area, Toronto’s current streetcar system has many of the same functions as the new streetcar lines in the US.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, I will investigate more closely what the lessons are for Toronto from this latest spurt of streetcar construction (yes, there is a lot that American cities can teach us), and the implications as we embark on a new streetcar\/light rail building era in the next decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Metro Gold Line, Pasadena, California. The light rail renaissance that has taken place across North America has taken a few interesting directions since 1978, when what is considered the first of these new light rail systems, Edmonton’s, opened. The boom continued through the 1980s and 1990s, but has slowed down, with fewer citiesContinue reading “Streetcars and LRT: the North American context”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8140,1183,499,661,1153,457,6330,3014,4889,8138,8149,8139,4712,8148,8147,460,2672,1150,4910,8144,1154,8145,8146,21,5823,2941,4714,579,576,1233,1652,8141,8137,19,506,8142,8143,391,2813],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","tag-albuquerque","tag-baltimore","tag-boston","tag-calgary","tag-california","tag-canada","tag-charlotte","tag-cincinnati","tag-edmonton","tag-green-line","tag-jeffrey-spivak","tag-kansas-city","tag-kenosha","tag-larger-network","tag-light-rail-systems","tag-los-angeles","tag-memphis","tag-miami","tag-newark","tag-newark-city-subway","tag-north-america","tag-north-campus","tag-north-carolina","tag-other-cities","tag-pasadena","tag-philadelphia","tag-pittsburgh","tag-san-diego","tag-san-francisco","tag-st-louis","tag-streetcar-network","tag-tampa","tag-the-urban-land-institute-magazine","tag-toronto","tag-united-states","tag-university-of-buffalo","tag-urban-land-institute","tag-usd","tag-wisconsin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStreetcars and LRT: the North American context - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/02\/09\/draft-streetcars-and-light-rail-transit-part-1-north-american-context\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Streetcars and LRT: the North American context - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Los Angeles Metro Gold Line, Pasadena, California. 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