They carried clanging bells, scared the devil out of horses and went by names like Toonerville and - in New Orleans, at least - Desire.
Streetcars and trolleys used to be as much a part of the urban fabric as saloons and crooked politicians until cities began ripping up tracks to make room for America's newest transportation heartthrob - the automobile.Now, in an era of ozone depletion, gridlock and expensive fuel, transportation experts are looking back to that all-but-forgotten mode of urban movement under a new title.
The experts call it light rail. And if cities that abandoned the streetcar in the 1940s and '50s are looking for a way to avoid traffic tie-ups, according to Joe Zucker, they need to believe in reincarnation.
"We destroyed our own system - now we're on our way back," said Zucker, a Chicago transportation consultant who considers light rail "a glorified trolley car."
"Last year 47 million new automobiles were built on this planet," he said. "Where are we going to put these vehicles? It means the rebirth of the streetcar in all these cities that used to have them."
Indeed, there looks to be a light rail renaissance. Since 1981, when San Diego converted an abandoned rail line to trolley use, cities like St. Louis, Baltimore and, soon, Dallas have turned back to the streetcar to resolve growing traffic and environmental problems.
"It's safe to say as a rule these systems have been very successful where they're planned and built with strong community support," said Chip Bishop with the American Public Transit Association in Washington, D.C. "People like them. They're a throwback to the trolley days. There's a distinct appeal to them."
According to The New Electric Railway Journal, 17 U.S. cities have operating light rail systems. A few, like San Francisco, never abandoned their old streetcar systems. Others, like Portland, Ore., are revitalizing their downtown business districts around access to light rail. Another 22 cities are considered to be in the planning stage.
Some experts say that light rail has advantages over competing alternatives after the initial financial investment, which generally runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Where it is very good is in places that need something better than buses or cities that can't afford a subway," said Vukan Vuchic, a transportation professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's cheaper than a subway and more attractive than buses. You get a really good, attractive transit system at moderate cost."
Light rail differs from a subway in that it rarely runs underground, reducing construction costs connected with tunneling. Light rail moves through city streets and often reaches out to the suburbs on abandoned or rarely used rail lines.
"All you have to do is hang up a trolley wire and keep it on an existing track," Chicago's Zucker said.
Baltimore's $363 million light rail system began running in April 1992. It goes from the northern suburb of Timonium though the city's central business district out into Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County to the south. Through downtown Baltimore, the cars run down the middle of Howard Street in the heart of the business district.
Baltimore's light rail was considered a flop at first. During the first year it attracted fewer than 10,000 riders a day. But the ridership has grown and the system is exceeding projections, according to the Maryland Mass Transit Administration. Baltimore light rail now carries about 20,000 passengers a day. An expansion of the system with the addition of two more rails is expected to increase ridership to 36,000 a day by 2000.
A lot of the success is attributed to Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Suburban baseball fans have taken advantage of the system to get to games. In 1993, when Baltimore hosted the All-Star Game, the light rail handled 32,000 passengers in one day. That record was broken last year when Pope John Paul II attracted 40,000 passengers to a mass held at the ballpark.
"If you build it and educate people, they'll use it," Zucker said.
Zucker and Bishop said that light rail can be more economical than a bus system, apart from the huge start-up cost. Light rail can pull a number of cars at once with a single operator. Each bus, on the other hand, requires its own driver.
And the rail cars hold up better than buses.
"The life of a bus lasts 12 to 15 years," Zucker said. "A light rail car can go 35 years before it has to be replaced. When you have to buy a new bus fleet every 12 years, that runs into money. Buses don't last."
Not everyone is enamored with light rail. John Kain, an economics professor at Harvard University, said it frequently is proposed "in areas where it is not an effective response to the problem."
Light rail works best, he said, in places of high population density with a concentration of destinations. It is not effective dealing with modern urban sprawl, Kain said, because many workers now find themselves headed toward other suburbs as opposed to the downtown business district for their jobs. Light rail, almost by nature, moves downtown.
Buses do a better job accommodating commuters because they have access to areas light rail can't reach, affording riders greater access, he said.
"Bus system improvements give more bang for the buck," Kain said.
Some projects encounter huge cost overruns. In Buffalo, a six-mile system wound up costing $500 million and forced cars off eight blocks of the city's main drag. It is not heavily used.
In contrast, the St. Louis system attracted 30,000 customers a day right off the bat. Ridership is tripling projections, and the system is so popular that the biggest problem is crowding.
The answer, proponents say, is an integrated transportation system combining light rail, buses and automobiles.
"People can still use their cars, but they use them to drive to the light rail station or they take a bus to the station," Zucker said. "Now we drive everyplace. It requires education."
But light rail's resurgence could end before it really gets under way. Congress, looking to balance the budget, has made noises about cutting into the subsidies for mass transit systems.
In the past, the federal government has provided financial aid for the development of several systems as demonstration projects, but that money may start drying up.
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., who advises the House leadership on fiscal matters related to transportation, said it should be left to local communities to develop their systems, "not the country's taxpayers."
Still, Bishop, of the public transit association, doesn't believe the situation is as bleak as it sounds. "I would certainly say that the federal government has not soured on these systems," he said.