What is a Modern Streetcar?

A streetcar is a small train that runs on steel tracks in mixed traffic.  They are modern, sleek vehicles that are electrically powered, quiet, and offer a smooth ride for up to 130 passengers on board.  The tracks are placed in a lane of traffic near the curb.  At places where the streetcar stops, the curb is bumped out and passengers step directly from the curb onto the streetcar.

Streetcars are not a tourist attraction, although tourists will love to ride them.  Streetcars are not a historical throwback or gimmick.  Streetcars are not dressed up buses.  Streetcars are a modern transportation system that will spur and focus investment in the center city.  The thousands of riders each day will eliminate hundreds of car trips, reducing congestion, noise and pollution in our urban core.

Riding a streetcar is much easier than riding a bus.  Because passengers can see the rails in the ground, they know where the streetcar is going.  Unlike a bus, where riders line up to walk through a single door and put their money in a fare box, a streetcar passenger purchases their ticket at a kiosk at the stop before the train arrives.  When the streetcar pulls up to the stop, passengers board through one of six doors, allowing people to quickly step on or off the streetcar. At a stop, dozens of people can move on and off the streetcar in under 30 seconds.

Anyone can ride the streetcar.  For the disabled, riding the streetcar is easier than riding a bus.  The wide doors and no steps to go up make getting on or off the streetcar simple.  People in wheelchairs need only to press a button on the outside of the streetcar to extend a small ramp to the curb that allows them to roll right on without any assistance from the driver.  For children and senior citizens, the streetcar offers increased mobility and freedom.  A mother with a child in a stroller can roll right onto the streetcar, never having to disturb the baby.  Office workers can have their lunch choices expanded.  Having a streetcar nearby means you can get to any point on the line and back before the end of your lunch break.  People coming into the suburbs need only to park one time and use the streetcar to get to whatever downtown destinations they want to visit.  Because streetcars are so open inside, a bicyclist can roll their bike right onto the train and not have to worry about riding in heavy traffic.

Streetcars can supplement bus service.  By allowing buses to make fewer stops downtown, traffic flow is improved.  Local, downtown passengers on the buses can be diverted to the streetcar, giving the buses greater long haul capacity.

A modern streetcar isn’t the same thing as “light rail,” like DART uses in Dallas.  Light rail trains are larger and heavier, and much more expensive.  They’re also not as nimble as modern streetcars.  Light rail is usually concerned with moving people over greater distances than streetcars – a function similar in many ways to Fort Worth’s upcoming Southwest-to-Northeast line.  Streetcars are designed to move people around and between neighborhoods in the central city.

The modern streetcar forms an extremely important part of a modern, integrated transit system that also uses buses and longer-distance rail.  It provides neighborhood circulation for residents and workers as well as a “last mile” connection for commuters.