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Greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina
Sep
6
Photo: A Desire For More Streetcars
Written by J. Chavis and filed under Photo Series
In what is likely to become a regular weekly series, we’ll be highlighting photos of Raleigh and providing a little background information to back them up. Hopefully they’ll serve as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about Raleigh, and you’ll get in on the action by sending your own photo submissions to: jchavis@raleighfreepress.com. Please be sure to include your name if you’d like to be credited for the photo.
No it’s not San Francisco – it’s Raleigh. The city ran electric streetcars through much of downtown until 1932. These days all that’s left of that legacy is a “showtime” gas powered trolley that travels limited Downtown routes on Thursdays-Saturday. There is also a historical trolley tour given on Saturdays out of Mordecai Historic Park .
There have been talks about bringing back the full service in an effort to connect vibrant areas of downtown, but so far the city has nothing formal on the books. What do you think - if a proposal for more streetcars in downtown Raleigh came by, would you get on board?
Photo courtesy of The Raleigh City Museum.
Get more information on the historical trolley tours from the City of Raleigh website.
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3 Responses to “Photo: A Desire For More Streetcars”
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While Streetcars may or may not be the answer, one thing that is desperately needed in downtown is public transportation. Its just not good.
Streetcars are nostalgic; but they are also noisy, uncomfortable, and lack many creature-comforts, akin to the plague of our already under-utilized transit system.
Quote from D. Diaz in a recent story on WRAL
“Right now, it’s hard to get to those areas by walking, so we are really interested in linking those areas, perhaps with a downtown trolley,” he said. He pointed to the success of that type of transportation in cities, including downtown Portland, Oregon.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1843814/