How the Streetccar Discussion Began

Some say that Andres Duany first proposed bringing streetcars back to Atlanta’s streets.  Some say it was me. I will take credit for being first to promote this idea, but by no means did I "come up" with it!  The idea came from someone in the City's Planning Department, who drew up some plans for the redevelopment of Auburn Avenue.  I wish I knew who that person was, because he or she deserves the actual credit.

The idea was presented to me as I was reviewing plans for the revitalization of Auburn Avenue during a City Council Community Development Committee work session. I noticed that they called for streetcars on both sides of the street.  Growing up I had visited family in New Orleans many times, and rode the St. Charles Streetcars a lot, so I could envision what streetcars could mean not only for Auburn Ave. but eventually for Atlanta as a whole. 

And so I picked up that flag and rode forward with it as far as I could at that time.  This article was part of that effort.

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

September 6, 1999
Horizon Section, Page E-1

 

A streetcar: Main desire

 

If you ask Atlanta City Councilman Doug Alexander, the future of transit is, well, the 1920’s.

By Lucy Soto

For decades, Atlanta's natty cream-and-green streetcars clanked, hissed and squeaked through downtown. At their peak, they carried more than a million passengers a year and webbed the city in a fabric of business and community that old-timers remember in nostalgic voices. Today, with worried talk of the ill effects of sprawl and the push for downtown rejuvenation and "transportation alternatives," some people are hoping electric streetcars on rails will make a comeback.

"There's a warm fuzzy in our hearts for streetcars," said Atlanta City Councilman Doug Alexander, who has become the city's most zealous supporter of a proposal to resurrect a streetcar line from the King Center to Centennial Olympic Park, up Auburn Avenue and back through Edgewood.

"The idea is to get something started, to get one route in place," he said. "The crucial, central route."

Alexander, a train enthusiast, has been pushing the idea for years, without success. There are no formal plans for streetcars now, and a suggestion to revive trolleys in a 1991 redevelopment plan for the Sweet Auburn area never gained momentum.

But recently Alexander enlisted the help of four consultants and officials from New Orleans' popular streetcar system. And now, with creation of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, the new panel charged with fixing sprawl problems like air pollution and with creating transportation alternatives, Alexander feels he has momentum.

GRTA, created this year by the Legislature with a big push from Gov. Roy Barnes, has the power to create new transit systems and to help local governments start their own.

This fall, Alexander plans to embark on a road show of sorts presenting his plan to state, regional and local leaders --- to the acronym soup of agencies like GRTA that might be willing to dig into their wallets to help. Alexander estimates that building his proposed line would cost more than $80 million, most of which he hopes to get from federal transportation agencies. The remainder could come from a variety of state and local sources, Alexander said, though it's not clear how that mix would pan out.

Alexander says arranging funding and planning for the streetcar line could take a couple of more years. If that works out, he says streetcars could appear on the streets of Atlanta early next century.

Alexander hopes business will get involved and help "tastefully" sponsor each of the 15 cars that would be built to look much like the ones that ran in Atlanta early this century.

The rail line would be an "economic development tool" for downtown, Alexander says, to shuttle office workers as well as tourists and conventioneers.

Still, the idea could be a difficult sell. Running buses costs less than installing track and putting in overhead electric guidewires.

Also, the proposal probably would have to be included in a current transportation study being conducted by downtown's business district, said Eric Meyer, a planner for GRTA.

"The downtown Atlanta core needs a circulation system. We have great regional transit access, but once you get here how do you get around?" Meyer said. "A streetcar is an option, but there may be other options that this study might reveal."

New, old-looking streetcars are definitely part of the tourist market in some cities, including New Orleans, with its famous St. Charles line. The area has about 16 miles of service. Memphis revived its streetcars in 1993 and uses its 4.3 miles of streetcar system downtown to shuttle visitors to sports events, convention sites, and music and entertainment venues along Beale Street.

In fact, light-rail systems, the fancy modern word for streetcars, have been popping up in central cities all over the country, including Denver, Dallas, St. Louis and Los Angeles.

Transportation, not tourism, was the biggest use of streetcars during their first life, said urban historian Timothy Crimmins, the associate provost for academic programs at Georgia State University.

Streetcars or trolleys were an integral part of Atlanta's culture as early as 1894, when the city had 44 miles of track. At the turn of the century until just after World War II, streetcar lines radiated from downtown like wheel spokes, carrying passengers to work, shopping and entertainment. At its height, the system had about 220 miles of track. The lines spurred construction of the first suburbs, in Midtown, Grant Park, West End and Ansley Park.

Streetcars went out as far as a nine-mile circle, Crimmins said, turning around in places like the heart of what is now Virginia-Highland.

"Trolley access is what made lands at the periphery of the city livable, " Crimmins said. "Trolley lines were financed by civic leaders who owned large tracts of land on the undeveloped fringes of the city. There was money to be made from the sale of land that became far more valuable once people had (streetcar) access to it."

But bridges, limited-access highways, parking decks and the mass popularity of the automobile pushed streetcars into oblivion.

Before being replaced by electric-line buses, called trackless trolleys, the last electric streetcar on rails in Atlanta ran in 1949. In the early morning hours of April 11, Car Number 897 bumped down Broad Street to Peachtree Street.

 

Now, Alexander would like to recreate that scene: "Basically, I want to take Atlanta forward --- into the 1920s."

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