Connections

The announcement that Tucson Arizona has placed an order for seven streetcars from Oregon Iron Works is another significant step in the establishment of the Portland region as the leader in a new American streetcar manufacturing industry. Cincinnati, Houston, Denver, Salt Lake City and Charlotte are known to be considering following suite, but another recent news story has implications that, if pursued, could bring Portland's modern streetcars forefront on the national stage.





On May 24th, New York City began a pilot project that removed automobile traffic through Times Square on Broadway between 47th and 42nd streets, and again at Herald Square between 35th and 33rd, to form large pedestrian plazas. It creates an opening for a modern streetcar line that would enhance the pedestrian experience at the same time maintaining through traffic on the Great White Way.

A streetcar line added to the mix, say from 47th to 33rd, would serve both as a pedestrian circulator within the plazas and as a connector between Times and Herald Squares. A new, clean surface transportation option would emerge in the center of Manhattan. To do it, two-way traffic would have to be restored on the isolated portion of Broadway, bracketed by the plazas between 42nd and 35th.

It could be the start of something much larger. Additional improvements, already planned, include separate bike lanes and pedestrian promenades between Columbia Circle at 59th and a new plaza at 23rd. They hint that changes have only started on Broadway and that the street, always outside the grid, has a very different future than its conforming neighbors. It's easy to foresee a super-Ramblas between Central and Battery parks. Tied together by a modern streetcar line, it would be the world's ultimate green boulevard.

I know where they can get the streetcars.



The prototype Oregon Iron Works streetcar, the first modern streetcar built in the United States, at the Portland Streetcar's shop complex where it has joined the 10 Czech built cars in the fleet. May 31 2009.




Third Avenue Railway car #562 on the Broadway Line through Times Square in 1946. A 1930's edict by Mayor LaGaurdia's administration stipulated that buses would replace streetcars by 1960. No new streetcars were purchased by the Third Avenue Railway thereafter. Ironically, Portland's 1932 order of Brill-built streetcars, nicknamed "the Broadway cars" for the line of their initial use, were more modern than anything that ever ran on its much larger namesake.

Third Avenue Railway's Broadway line intersected with short, busy "crosstown" lines that crossed Manhattan like rungs on a ladder at 42nd, 59th, 125th, 138th, 149th, 163rd, 167th, 180th and 207th Streets. It was abandoned in 1948, the same year as Portland's Broadway line.