Portland’s streetcar, opened in 2001, was the first new, modern streetcar system built in North America, and the operation – separate from the older Tri-Met light rail system – features sleek low-floor trams running on downtown streets. These heritage streetcars use antique or replica equipment and were mainly intended to cater to tourists, or to support downtown commerce or redevelopment. Originally, many of these new lines were short, “vintage” streetcar routes, mimicking New Orleans’ famous St Charles Streetcar line. Yet by the late 1980s, streetcar lines were once again popping up in cities across the country. By 1965, only Toronto and a handful of US cities still operated these apparently outmoded means of urban transport.Ī streetcar on Spring Street, Melbourne. In 1947 the cars were immortalised in Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, sneered at by Blanche DuBois as “rattle-trap street-cars that bang through the Quarter”.
Arguably, the streetcars of Toronto are equivalent to New York’s yellow cabs or the gondolas of Venice, an internationally recognised symbol of the city.Īfter the second world war, however, most North American cities abandoned their streetcar networks as ridership declined, car ownership soared, and the cost to renew streetcar infrastructure – footed mostly by cash-strapped private transit operators – proved too steep.
They aren’t any slower than comparable bus routes on other streets – and, of course, they’re charming. They provide a smoother ride, can carry more passengers (the TTC would require three buses to provide the same capacity as the one new, low-floor streetcar currently being added to the fleet), and run on clean electricity. Toronto's streetcars are equivalent to New York’s yellow taxicabs or the gondolas of Venice, a symbol of the cityĬlearly, streetcars do offer some advantages over buses. In Toronto, as in Amsterdam, Melbourne and Prague, trams are an essential part of the urban transport system – but why exactly? To tackle my long-held skepticism of America’s streetcar projects, I determined to take a road trip from Toronto to Miami to visit four streetcar cities: Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Tampa. Nearly 300,000 daily passengers are served by the 250-strong fleet, with some routes scheduled to run at two-minute intervals during peak times. What seemed unique and exciting as a child quickly became a hassle for the regular user.Īnd yet, Toronto’s streetcars – better known as trams in Europe – are an integral part of city life here. In rush-hour traffic, streetcars are slow, crowded, unreliable and prone to the dreaded “short-turn” – where they turn back before reaching their destination, in an attempt to stick to the schedule. Toronto’s streetcar system, originally designed for a much smaller, pre-automobile city, quickly became a nuisance to ride. At that point, the novelty soon wore out. Even the mazes of tracks and webs of overhead wires were visually striking.Īfter finishing school, however, I moved downtown and found myself relying on those streetcars that I loved as a child. The streetcars served the city’s most interesting neighbourhoods, adding a quiet rumble as they glided along its streets. As a child, I thought streetcars were the coolest way to get around the city, especially the older “red rocket” cars the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) operated into the 1980s. I grew up in suburban Toronto, the home of the largest streetcar network in the western hemisphere.