Streetcars returning to North America

With new low-floor and catenary-free models at the forefront of a revolution in streetcar technology, the time is ripe for streetcars to make a full-fledged comeback in North America. A conversation with Steve Hall, General Manager of Bombardier’s Vancouver office.

By John Calimente, re:place Magazine

Streetcars and interurbans were ubiquitous in North America prior to World War II. At their peak, Canadian cities were stitched together by about 3,600 km of track. In the U.S., 71,000 km of track connected their towns and cities together. That’s the equivalent of track stretching 10 times the distance from Vancouver to St. John’s. According to Bombardier’s Steve Hall, there were over 60,000 streetcars running in North America, and every city with over 5,000 people had a streetcar system. Vancouver’s streetcars ran for 65 years, from 1890 until 1955, after which they were replaced by trolley buses.

Our city has been fortunate to keep its quiet and non-polluting trolley buses - it is now the only Canadian city still running them. Diesel buses may have eventually replaced streetcars in most other cities in North America, but they have never captured the imagination of the general public. A great post on The Infrastructurist lists their 36 reasons streetcars are better than buses.

What I like about most about modern streetcars is the smoothness of the ride. One is not constantly jostled back and forth and side to side moving in and out of traffic and stopping for other vehicles like on a bus. Vancouver’s Olympic Line, the demonstration line running between Granville Island and the Olympic Village, is proof of this. It almost feels like one is gliding across the ground - see this video for an example. This superior ride is one reason for the popularity of commuter rail; it is a calm environment in which one can do work or simply relax.

Bombardier’s Steve Hall grew up around streetcars. His father was a streetcar operator for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), driving the old Peter Witt cars which featured coal stoves on board. Hall worked for the TTC as well, eventually moving on to the Urban Transit Development Corporation (UTDC), a crown corporation in Ontario that developed the SkyTrain technology used in the Lower Mainland. Hall moved to Vancouver to head up operations and maintenance for the construction of SkyTrain, and stayed on to manage Bombardier’s Western Canada office after the company bought up UTDC in 1991.

Hall is bullish on the prospects for more streetcar lines here. “North America is emerging now, and that’s part of the reason for the demonstration line we’re running in Vancouver. We’re tracking 40 streetcar projects in North American cities that are either in the planning or start-up phase. So we see this as a huge phase coming in the business.” Cities such as Phoenix and Minneapolis are among the many cities that have added light rail systems in the past few years, but streetcars are different in that they share rights-of-way with cars.

Portland, Oregon kicked off the streetcar revival on the West Coast with the opening of the Portland Streetcar in 2001. This was followed by the Tacoma Link Line in Tacoma, Washington in 2003 and the South Lake Union streetcar in Seattle in 2007. Other streetcar systems in the planning stages will benefit from a December announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that made $130 million available for urban streetcar projects.

In Canada, Vancouver has been running its Olympic Line demonstration line since January 21st of this year. Montreal is considering bringing back the streetcar on a route between the old city and the central business district, and Toronto recently concluded a huge $1.2 billion order with Bombardier for 204 new low-floor cars. “We’re very excited about that order” says Hall. “It will be in production in Thunder Bay for many years, and that opens up all kinds of potential with cars in production in North America.”

And the timing couldn’t be better. Recent technological innovations are making streetcars an even easier fit for North American cities. Bombardier is now producing the first 100% low floor streetcars in Europe, with the Vancouver currently the only place to ride one in North America. “This is the very first time that there’s been a conventional axel wheel set on a low-floor streetcar”, says Hall. “It didn’t really take off until we were able to do this without a special bogie design.”

Another innovation coming soon is catenary-free operation, with power coming not from an overhead power supply, but by induction of power from the roadside. Called PRIMOVE, as Hall explains “There’s no actual contact between the streetcar and the power source - it’s a derivation of the SkyTrain motor technology. Since there’s no contact, there’s no wear or maintenance on the street side either. And there’s no power out there on the street so there’s no risk. ” PRIMOVE should prove especially popular where cities do not want overhead catenary blocking views, such as the old European town centres.

In Europe “ridership is booming”, says Hall. “You can tell by the number of projects going on and the volume of cars being ordered. There have been 30 light rail or streetcar projects completed or started in Europe in the last 10 years, and Bombardier has been selling large orders of cars to cities like Berlin.” Streetcars have been more appealing for European cities due to their traditionally dense urban cores. “The urban structure has driven it”, says Hall, “high density living is just a part of who they are.”

Until very recently, North American cities were becoming ever more dispersed, which created low density areas unsuited for running streetcars. “It’s the way we live, the way we work, and the dependence on the automobile,” says Hall. But that is changing as well. “Now we’re saying that maybe that wasn’t the ideal for the world we’re going to be living in. So we’re in the process of making that transition to higher density neighbourhoods. We’re fortunate that we live in Vancouver, which is a prime example of movement back into that kind of living.”

The trend in North America so far has been for city governments to lead the way in developing streetcar systems. Hall notes that “Transit authorities are responsible for a very wide area, so they have to make decisions based on where they can make the most impact. Cities are looking at it from a different perspective - the development perspective. And how do they want to shape the downtown core? And it turns out that streetcar systems are a very effective tool to do that. They have a significant impact on development.”

The federal government is helping as well with increased funding for public transit. “What we’re seeing in Canada is a level of federal government investment in transit that we haven’t seen in the last 30 years”, says Hall. “Especially since about 2005, it’s been a complete change. I think even now there’s proportionally greater investment in Canada than there is in the U.S.”

As to whether streetcars are the best technology for all cities, Hall puts that debate to rest. “I don’t think the technology fights are helpful. I don’t think that’s where the debate should be. Rather than technology, people need to be asking themselves ‘How do you want to live? What do you want your city to be?’ Get the vision - get people united on that. The technology decisions will work themselves out.”

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John Calimente is the president of Rail Integrated Developments and a member of the Transit Museum Society. He is a fan of great public transit + transit integrated communities + urban life lived without a car.