Desire grows for streetcars

The average price for a mile of track ranges from $8 million to $25 million, one-third to one-fifth the cost of commuter rails and subways, Graebner says. The reason more than 40 cities are exploring streetcars today, he says, is that all systems opened recently have produced handsome returns. According to figures from local officials and data advocacy groups:

• Tampa, Fla., spent more than $55 million on its system and attracted more than $1 billion in investments.

• More than 100 projects, worth around $2.5 billion, were built along the $100-million Portland line.

• The $20-million line in Little Rock, Ark., attracted about $200 million in development.

• Kenosha, Wis., with a population just shy of 100,000, built the cheapest system ($5.2 million for two miles of track). It brought in about $150 million in development.

Advocates don't argue that streetcars are synonymous with development, but that's missing the point, according to "Street Smart," a recent report by Reconnecting America, a nonprofit that promotes urban development that integrates public transportation. "You want development to happen next to a streetcar so people won't get into a car and drive," says Gloria Ohland, a vice president of communications for Reconnecting America.

In other words, the streetcar helps build denser urban areas. Michael English, vice president of the board running the Tampa system, says the city planned its routes not to take cars off the Interstate, but to provide alternatives to driving short routes. The lines connect Tampa's historic district to a burgeoning downtown.

"We need to rethink sprawl," says Len Brandrup, director of transportation in Kenosha. "We believe in capitalism, but we have few tools to get people out of cars and into public transportation."

And that's the big question: Can streetcars be efficient means of transit? Robert Dunphy, an expert on transportation and infrastructure at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, is not entirely convinced. Mr. Dunphy likes streetcars, but views them as amenities. Most of those operating today – with the exception of those in larger cities such as Portland or San Francisco – fall into that category.

Lisa Gray, director of the nonprofit Charlotte Trolley, calls the local streetcar (currently closed while the city connects it to a new light rail line) an "attraction." It's not transit, she says, but a "moving museum" that happens to serve as transit. Ms. Gray says the vehicles are a great gathering point, and a way for local citizens to connect with the past. "When the trolley was the only mode of transportation, people met their neighbors on it, she says. "This notion of traveling is connected to community."

Streetcar advocates often talk about the trolley's power to create "place." That's exactly why they'll work in downtowns, Hales says. Graebner adds that they are more intimate transportation than buses.

Dunphy says streetcars have a hipper appeal. "People who are users of public transport are fine with buses," he says. "Streetcars are for people who don't use public transportation." Dunphy isn't arguing that streetcars should remain museum pieces, but wonders whether their resurgence can address the American transportation conundrum: "it's a lot easier to get people to support public transit than to get them on it."

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