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96-577: The OC Streetcar is a modern streetcar line currently under construction in Orange County, California , running through the cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove . The electric-powered streetcar will be operated by the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), and will serve ten stops in each direction along its 4.15-mile (6.68 km) route. With the exception of a short loop in downtown Santa Ana,

192-716: A 2021 start. The streetcar will operate between the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center to a new Harbor Transit Center in Garden Grove, linking the Metrolink station and downtown Santa Ana . The streetcar's planned eastern terminus is the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center , which is served by Metrolink commuter rail and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner , as well as a number of bus routes. From

288-440: A city street instead of on the unpaved street surface as the omnibus lines used. When a wagon was drawn upon rails the rolling resistance of the vehicle was lowered and the average speed was increased. A horse or team that rode along rails could carry more fare paying passengers per day of operation than those that did not have rails. North America's first streetcar lines opened in 1832 from downtown New York City to Harlem by

384-505: A curbside, street running system between the Santa Ana station and Raitt Street; west of there, it will operate in a dedicated right-of-way. The streetcar is proposed to operate from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays and holidays. Trains will run every 10 minutes between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and every 15 minutes at other hours. A single trip from end-to-end on

480-454: A daily basis. Several of the communities that grew as a result of this new mobility were known as streetcar suburbs . Another outgrowth of the popularity of urban streetcar systems was the rise of interurban lines, which were basically streetcars that operated between cities and served remote, even rural, areas. In some areas interurban lines competed with regular passenger service on mainline railroads and in others they simply complemented

576-595: A defunct streetcar line using heritage streetcars in Philadelphia ( SEPTA Route 15 ) in 2005. Other cities in both the United States and Canada opened new heritage streetcar lines that operated only on weekends or seasonally, primarily as tourist services, and so didn't provide true "public transit" service. Truly modern streetcar systems arose in the United States, starting in 2001, in Portland, Oregon. This

672-456: A double-ended design for its latest order of S700s (placed in 2019). The S70, S700 and Avanto can be configured to operate on various overhead power supply systems. For example, the Avantos ordered for France are dual voltage , capable of operating on 750 V DC when running on tram or light rail tracks and on 25 kV 50 Hz AC when running on main line tracks. Systems in

768-588: A few sections, even partial street running, in reserved lanes (restricted to transit vehicles only). The development of light rail systems in North America then proliferated widely after 1985, mostly in the United States, but also in Canada and Mexico. Including streetcars, light rail systems are operating successfully in over 30 U.S. cities, and are in planning or construction stages in several more. New public transit streetcar services also returned, at least in

864-519: A great deal of electric light illumination, an observation tower with electric elevators, and several prototype designs of electric streetcars. Montgomery, Alabama , established its electric streetcar system nicknamed the Lightning Route on April 15, 1886. Another early electrified streetcar system in the United States was established in Scranton, Pennsylvania , by November 30, 1886; it was

960-548: A light-rail system that could connect the county’s core," with potential future extensions to Disneyland , Anaheim's Platinum Triangle and the John Wayne Airport . An extension north to Anaheim along Harbor Boulevard could connect with the controversial Katella Avenue streetcar project ( Anaheim Rapid Connection ), should that project be built in the future. Although the Anaheim City Council rejected

1056-492: A main line running from Fullerton via Santa Ana to Irvine . It would have included service along the current OC Streetcar route between the Santa Ana train station and Bristol Street, but not along the diagonal West Santa Ana Branch right-of-way. Multiple branches were also proposed for the line to serve other areas of Orange County; most of the lines would have been elevated. The initial 1992 proposal called for 90 miles (140 km) of light rail, which due to political opposition

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1152-628: A mule-powered line in Celaya, survived until May 1954. In the 21st century, horsecars are still used to take visitors along the 9-kilometre (5.6 mi) tour of the 3 cenotes from Chunkanán near Cuzamá Municipality in the state of Yucatán. Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, Cal., has operated a short horsecar line since it opened in July 1955. Similarly, Disney World theme park in Orlando has operated

1248-500: A projected $ 407.76 million (up from an estimated $ 299.3 million as of June 2017) with an expected completion in 2021. On September 24, 2018, OCTA awarded a $ 220.5 million contract to Walsh Construction Company to build the streetcar. On November 30, 2018, a groundbreaking ceremony was held, and the Federal Transit Administration announced that federal funding would be increased to $ 217 million. The line

1344-600: A short horsecar line since it opened in Oct 1971. At both parks, they run from 8-9am to 1:30-2pm, and, depending on the season, sometimes 5-7pm. During the nineteenth century, particularly from the 1860s to the 1890s, many streetcar operators switched from animals to other types of motive power. Before the use of electricity the use of steam dummies , tram engines , or cable cars was tried in several North American cities. A notable transition took place in Washington, D.C., in

1440-745: A single animal were known as "bobtail streetcars" whether mule-drawn or horse-drawn. By the mid-1880s, there were 415 street railway companies in the U.S. operating over 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of track and carrying 188 million passengers per year using animal-drawn cars. In the nineteenth century Mexico had streetcars in around 1,000 towns and many were animal-powered. The 1907 Anuario Estadístico lists 35 animal-powered streetcar lines in Veracruz state, 80 in Guanajuato , and 300 lines in Yucatán . Although most animal-drawn lines were shut down in

1536-429: A streetcar line because of its short length and use of single vehicles (rather than trains) of the same type as the low-floor streetcars used in Portland. However, the line is separated from other traffic over most of its length, making it a light rail line, which is what its operator ( Sound Transit ) considers it to be. Some 70 U.S. cities have studied the idea of bringing back streetcars as transit, although to date

1632-705: A streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation. Older surviving lines and systems in Boston , Cleveland , Mexico City , Newark , Philadelphia , Pittsburgh , and San Francisco were often infrastructure-heavy systems with tunnels, dedicated right-of-way , and long travel distances. Most of these older streetcar systems are largely rebuilt as light rail systems. About 22 North American cities, starting with Edmonton , Calgary and San Diego , have installed new light rail systems, some of which run along historic streetcar corridors. A few recent cases feature mixed-traffic street-running operation like

1728-436: A streetcar. Portland, Oregon , Seattle , and Salt Lake City have built both modern light rail and modern streetcar systems, while Tucson , Oklahoma City and Atlanta have built new modern streetcar lines. A few other cities and towns have restored a small number of lines to run heritage streetcars either for public transit or for tourists; many are inspired by New Orleans' St. Charles Streetcar Line , generally viewed as

1824-541: A successful light rail system ( MAX ), became the first city in the North America in more than 50 years to open a new streetcar system served by modern vehicles, with the opening of the Portland Streetcar . It uses low-floor cars built in the Czech Republic, but the system's first U.S.-assembled streetcar was delivered in 2009. The line serves as a downtown circulator between the central city core,

1920-465: A way of influencing property development in the corridors served, in such a way as to increase density while attracting residents interested in relatively car-free living. The Portland Streetcar is considered to have been very successful in this regard. The second "second-generation" streetcar system opened in North America was in 2007, in Seattle , where the city's transportation department led

2016-539: Is being built parallel to the old bridge. In addition, the line will cross Westminster Avenue on an elevated bridge to reach the Harbor Transit Center in Garden Grove. Eight Siemens S700 light rail vehicles will service the route, with six in operation at any one time. Overhead lines will deliver power to the trains at 750 volts , direct current . OCTA projects a daily ridership of between 6,000 and 7,300 passengers, and each streetcar's total capacity

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2112-405: Is being considered for redevelopment, potentially as a regional park with sports arenas and outdoor amphitheater, with mixed-used neighborhoods adjacent to a proposed stop on the streetcar route. In addition, 17.8 percent of households in the service area do not own a car, and the streetcar would markedly improve their access to the regional transit system. However, some businesses have opposed

2208-405: Is up to 180 people. The OC Streetcar will use a proof-of-payment system, requiring valid payment before boarding and lacking a turnstile barrier at stations. Fares will be purchased as paper tickets and passes at ticket vending machines at stations, or through a mobile ticketing app. Fares will be the same as charged on OCTA's OC Bus service. Herzog Transit Services won the contract to operate

2304-588: The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 in the United States. By the 1960s most North American streetcar lines were closed, with only the exceptions noted above and discussed below remaining in service. During the same time all streetcar systems in Central America were scrapped as well. The survival of the lines that made it past the 1960s was aided by the introduction of the successful PCC streetcar (Presidents' Conference Committee car) in

2400-571: The Great Depression of the 1930s. The onset of World War II held off the closure of some streetcar lines as civilians used them to commute to war related factory jobs during a time when rubber tires and gasoline were rationed. After the war automobile use continued to rise and was assisted in the 1940s and 1950s by the passage of the Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1948 and growth of provincial highways in Canada as well as

2496-647: The New York and Harlem Railroad , in 1834 in New Orleans, and in 1849 in Toronto along the Williams Omnibus Bus Line . These streetcars used horses and sometimes mules. Mules were thought to give more hours per day of useful transit service than horses and were especially popular in the south in cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana. In many cities, streetcars drawn by

2592-680: The Pearl District and Northwest Portland, Portland State University , and in 2005 was extended to the South Waterfront district, a new mixed-use development along the Willamette River shoreline. Running almost entirely on streets and without any separation from other traffic on most sections, it complements the MAX light rail system, which covers much longer distances and serves as a regional, higher-capacity rail system for

2688-482: The metropolitan area . The MAX system also runs along streets in central Portland, but is separated from traffic (other than buses) even in those areas, via reserved light-rail-only lanes. Construction of a second streetcar line, to the city's east side, began in 2009, and the new line opened in September 2012. The new Portland system and several of the new heritage streetcar systems have been intended, in part, as

2784-460: The 1920s and some were pulled by steam locomotives. Only 15 Mexican streetcar systems were electrified in the 1920s. Between 1895 and 1929, almost every major city in the United States suffered at least one streetcar strike. Sometimes lasting only a few days, more often these strikes were "marked by almost continuous and often spectacular violent conflict," at times amounting to prolonged riots and civil insurrection . Streetcar strikes rank among

2880-572: The 1930s, the park resurrected its trolley past with the "Lakeside Trolley" ride from 1997-2024, when the car was returned to the Shoreline Trolley Museum . In the days before widespread radio listening was popular and in towns or neighborhoods too small to support a viable amusement park streetcar lines might help to fund an appearance of a touring musical act at the local bandstand to boost weekend afternoon ridership. Many of Mexico's streetcars were fitted with gasoline motors in

2976-415: The 1940s and 1950s in all these cities except New Orleans. City buses were seen as more economical and flexible: a bus could carry a number of people similar to that in a streetcar without tracks and associated infrastructure. Many transit operators removed some streetcar tracks but kept the electric infrastructure so as to run electrified trackless trolley buses . Many such systems lasted only as long as

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3072-665: The 19th century, a few lines lasted into the 20th century and later. Toronto's horse-drawn streetcar operations ended in 1891. New York City saw regular horsecar service last until 1917. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , the Sarah Street line lasted until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the United States ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. Postage Stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and

3168-428: The 4.15-mile (6.68 km) line is expected to take 22 minutes, an average speed of 11.3 miles per hour (18.2 km/h). The route will include 10 stations in each direction, which will connect to 18 existing OCTA bus lines. Each station will include platforms near major cross streets. The route will be double-tracked for its entire length. The maintenance and storage facility will be located adjacent to 5th Street near

3264-798: The Americas most commonly use the 750 V DC system, but S700s are used on 600 V DC in San Diego and on 1500 V DC in Seattle. On the CityLynx Gold Line in Charlotte, the vehicles are additionally equipped with onboard batteries. The S70 and S700 can also be equipped to interface with older Siemens light rail vehicles. The San Diego Trolley's S70 and S700 vehicles frequently operate with high-floor SD-100 vehicles. The S70 model used in France

3360-607: The Arts District. After rejoining at Ross Street near the Santa Ana City Hall, the line will continue west along Santa Ana Boulevard to Raitt Street, where it will continue on the former Pacific Electric West Santa Ana Branch right-of-way along the north side of 4th Street. Turning northwest, the line will cross over the Santa Ana River and Westminster Avenue on bridges. At the northwest end of

3456-590: The Girard Avenue Line ), that was " bustituted " in 1992, resumed trolley service in 2005 using rebuilt historic cars (see below ); two other former Philadelphia trolley lines have been proposed for a resumption in trolley service in the 2010s though such plans have stalled. In Canada, most cities once had a streetcar system, but today the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the only traditional operator of streetcars, and maintains

3552-568: The Katella streetcar in January 2017, OCTA has listed a streetcar connection in its Central Harbor Boulevard Transit Corridor Study, leaving the possibility that it could be built as a county project, rather than a city project. OC Streetcar is one of two current transit projects intended to use the historic West Santa Ana Branch, the other being a Los Angeles Metro Rail Southeast Gateway Line . The two services are not planned to connect; however,

3648-554: The Los Angeles County line. Although OCTA has allowed some temporary uses (such as parking) in the historic right of way, and most of the tracks have been removed, the authority always intended to return this corridor to transit use in the future. As opposed to a streetcar system, the first proposals for a modern, second-generation light rail system serving north Orange County appeared in the 1990s. The CenterLine project would have created several light rail lines, including

3744-586: The S70 and S700 LRV is 95.4 feet (29.1 m) long, although the earliest S70 units delivered had a different, longer cab design that extended the length to 96 feet (29.3 m). The streetcar version of the S700 is 85.25 feet (25.98 m) long, about 10 feet (3.0 m) shorter than the standard LRV. Siemens also offers a US ("Ultra Short") variant of the LRV at 81.4 feet (24.8 m), about 14 feet (4.3 m) shorter than

3840-411: The U.S. where horsecars were used on street railways from 1862 to the early 1890s. From about 1890 to 1893 cable drives provided motive power to Washington streetcars, and after 1893 electricity powered the cars. The advantages of eliminating animal drive power included dispensing with the need to feed the animals and clean up their waste. A North American city that did not eliminate its cable car lines

3936-658: The U.S. – where the three-section model was originally known as S70 Avanto but soon became known simply as the S70 – was placed in 2001 for the METRORail system in Houston, Texas , and the first car was received by Houston in April 2003. This first series of S70 cars entered service on January 1, 2004, the opening day of Houston's light rail system. At Siemens's U.S. manufacturing facilities (in Sacramento, California ), only

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4032-494: The United States, around the same time as the emergence of the new light rail transit. Prior to 2001, the new streetcar systems that opened in North America for public transit were so-called heritage streetcar systems, alternatively known as "vintage trolley" or "historic trolley" lines. While Detroit and Seattle were the first cities to open heritage lines in 1976 and 1982, their heritage lines ultimately closed in 2003 and 2005, respectively. The first heritage system to be successful

4128-474: The Western Hemisphere's most extensive system in terms of track length, number of cars, and ridership. The city has added two new streetcar lines in recent years ( 510 Spadina in 1990, and 509 Harbourfront in 2000), and is upgrading its other lines. Its traditional fleet of CLRVs and ALRVs were replaced by the newer Bombardier Flexity low-floor models, and expansion is planned in combination with

4224-515: The active planning stages include Los Angeles , New York City , Sacramento , and Saint Paul . Siemens S700 The S70 was manufactured from 2002 to 2017 and the improved S700 from 2014 to present, but the latter model designation was only introduced in 2019 and then retroactively applied to certain versions of the S70 built in earlier years. In this market, it competes mainly with Alstom and Kinki Sharyo low-floor LRVs and streetcars manufactured by Brookville and Inekon . The Avanto

4320-486: The casualties were passengers and innocent bystanders. The 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike was one of the last of its kind. The rise of private automobile ownership took the edge off its impact, as an article in the Chicago Tribune observed as early as 1915. The increased use of automobiles during the 1920s contributed to the decline of many streetcar lines in North America, and the decline continued during

4416-584: The center of St. Charles Avenue, while the surviving Xochimilco line in Mexico City, the interurban lines in Cleveland, and almost all of the above-ground portions of the Boston system have similar rights-of-way, and, thus, are generally treated as "light rail" lines in modern contexts rather than as "streetcar" lines. The only electric system to survive without using these alternatives to street running

4512-464: The center section, in place of the transverse seating used in the S70. The design change provided better passenger comfort and movement. The first LRVs built to the newer design were the "Type 5" cars for the MAX Light Rail system, in 2014. Initially Siemens continued to sell LRVs with either center-section configuration and used the designation S70 for both. In 2019, the company began using

4608-433: The city's plans for the rejuvenation of its waterfront. The table below lists the surviving first-generation "legacy" streetcars in those nine North American cities: CAF USA LRVs Notes Newly built systems using modern streetcars have so far only opened in cities in the United States, and are summarized in the table below (listed in order of opening): Brookville Liberty In 2001, Portland, Oregon, which already had

4704-574: The deadliest armed conflicts in American labor union history. Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor called the St. Louis Streetcar Strike of 1900 "the fiercest struggle ever waged by the organized toilers" up to that point, with a total casualty count of 14 dead and about 200 wounded. The San Francisco Streetcar Strike of 1907 saw 30 killed and about 1000 injured. Many of

4800-412: The designation S700 for new orders, and in 2020 it retroactively applied the S700 designation to all LRVs and streetcars that had been built to the newer design since its creation in 2013 or 2014. The S70, S700, and Avanto have a modular design and can be built in a number of different sizes and configurations, including both light-rail vehicle (LRV) and streetcar versions. The standard version of

4896-536: The eastern terminus of the Pacific Electric right-of-way at Raitt Street. The Harbor and Raitt stops will include park and ride lots in addition to the existing parking structure at the Santa Ana train station. Although the former Pacific Electric rail bridge over the Santa Ana River still exists, it is single-track and considered structurally inadequate due to its age. A new double-track bridge

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4992-460: The experiences on modern-era streetcars operating in Little Rock, Memphis, Portland, Seattle, and Tampa. The research revealed that in these cities, the primary purpose of the streetcar was to serve as a development tool (in all cities examined), a second objective was to serve as a tourism-promoting amenity (in Little Rock and Tampa), and transportation objectives were largely afterthoughts with

5088-435: The first generation of equipment, but several survive to the present. The abandonment of city streetcar systems in the mid-twentieth century led to accusations of conspiracy which held that a union of automobile, oil, and tire manufacturers shut down the streetcar systems in order to further the use of buses and automobiles. The struggling depression-era streetcar companies were bought up by this union of companies who, over

5184-576: The first system to be run exclusively on electric power, giving Scranton the nickname "The Electric City". In 1887 an electric streetcar line opened between Omaha and South Omaha , Nebraska . The Omaha Motor Railway Company began operation in 1888. Along the east coast a large-scale electric street railway system known as the Richmond Union Passenger Railway was built by Frank J. Sprague in Richmond, Virginia , and

5280-549: The following decades, dismantled many of the North American streetcar systems. While it is true that General Motors , Firestone Tire , Standard Oil of California , Phillips Petroleum , and some other companies funded holding companies that purchased about 30 more of the hundreds of transit systems across North America, their real goal was to sell their products — buses, tires, and fuel — to those transit systems as they converted from streetcars to buses. During

5376-648: The inflexibility of a fixed-guideway transit system to adjust to system changes, as compared to buses. Streetcars in North America Streetcars or trolley(car)s ( American English for the European word tram ) were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail . Today, only Toronto still operates

5472-502: The line will be double-tracked for its entire length. Most of the route follows the original path of the Pacific Electric Railway "Red Cars" that served Santa Ana in the early 20th century, before being abandoned in 1950. Construction on the streetcar broke ground on November 30, 2018. As of October 2023, the line's expected revenue service date has been pushed to August 2025, per OCTA staff, despite initial plans for

5568-440: The line, it will briefly enter the city of Garden Grove where an intermodal transit center will be constructed at the line's terminus at the intersection of Westminster Avenue and Harbor Boulevard. The transit center will connect streetcars to OCTA's Harbor Boulevard bus routes, which are the busiest in the county, accounting for about 8 percent of OCTA's ridership and Westminster Avenue bus routes. The streetcar will operate as

5664-864: The mainline roads by serving towns not on the mainlines. The largest of these was the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles, which had over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of track and 2,700 scheduled services each day. The Hagerstown and Frederick Railway that started in 1896 in northern Maryland was built to provide transit service to resorts and the streetcar company built and operated two amusement parks to entice more people to ride their streetcars. The Lake Shore Electric Railway interurban in northern Ohio carried passengers to Cedar Point and several other Ohio amusement parks. The Lake Compounce amusement park, which started in 1846, had by 1895 established trolley service to its rural Connecticut location. Although outside trolley service to Lake Compounce stopped in

5760-496: The model S700 remains in production, the last S70s having been built in 2017, for Minneapolis–Saint Paul 's Metro Transit light rail system. The first purchase of the European version, a five-section tram-train design sold under the Avanto brand name, was a 15-car order placed in July 2002 by SNCF , for its line between Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bondy , which is now known as Île-de-France tramway Line 4 . The model number S700

5856-428: The new modern streetcar systems that are currently under construction: The systems listed above will use modern streetcars. For new heritage streetcar systems that are under construction, see relevant section below . In addition to the streetcar systems currently under construction, a number of additional streetcar systems are in the planning stages in the United States. Examples of cities with streetcar systems in

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5952-449: The notable exception of Portland, and to a lesser degree, Seattle. Not all streetcar systems were removed after World War II. The San Francisco cable car system and New Orleans' streetcars are the most famous examples of the survival of a "legacy" streetcar system in the United States to the present day. In addition to New Orleans' streetcars, Toronto's conventional electric streetcar system also avoided abandonment, as did portions of

6048-561: The number that have come to fruition has been small. In the 2000s, one factor in this was lack of funding support for streetcar development from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) under the Bush administration . However, under the Obama administration , the FTA indicated it would provide funding for streetcar projects in cities interested in building new systems. The following table lists

6144-442: The other legacy systems have received new equipment and most have upgraded to modern light rail vehicles. Some of these cities have also rehabilitated lines, and Newark, New Orleans, and San Francisco have added trackage and new lines in recent years; San Francisco also restored a streetcar line with heritage service in 1995 (see Heritage streetcar systems section, below). In Philadelphia, a former trolley line ( SEPTA Route 15, aka.

6240-526: The ownership of these companies. The former verdict was upheld on appeal in 1951. The systems described in the paragraphs above and below are genuine streetcars or tramways, with smaller vehicles and mixed-traffic street running (i.e. no separation from other vehicles), such as those in New Orleans and San Francisco . However, a greater number of North American cities have built light rail systems in recent decades, some of which operate partially in

6336-598: The possibility of re-establishing service between Santa Ana and Los Angeles has been studied by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) since 2012. Restoring full service to the Pacific Electric Santa Ana Line via light rail would cost about $ 3 billion to construct, and is expected to serve about 80,000 riders daily. Reception of the streetcar has been mixed among business owners and residents along

6432-481: The project to construct the South Lake Union Streetcar , but contracted with local transit authority King County Metro to operate the service. Connecting the neighborhood south of Lake Union with the transit core of downtown Seattle, it operates every 15 minutes and is served by three low-floor streetcars of the same type as some of those in Portland. Residents of the area began referring to

6528-454: The project, citing that customers might avoid the area during construction, and that the rail line would eliminate parking spaces and increase traffic congestion. In addition, low-income residents have expressed concern over the potential gentrification of their neighborhoods, and being unable to afford increased rents as a result of the rise in property value. The streetcar project has been criticized for its high cost ($ 70 million per mile), and

6624-558: The project, for a total of $ 175 million. The streetcar was also one of the "Top 10 State Infrastructure Projects" that Governor Jerry Brown has recommended for expedited federal review. The total funding would be 72.2 percent from the federal government, 8.6 percent from California's state cap and trade program, and 19.2 percent from the county sales tax. OCTA announced in September 2015 that HNTB Corporation would carry out design work. The $ 15 million contract covered design of tracks, bridges, stations, associated utilities and

6720-423: The proposed corridor. Supporters suggest that the project would increase property values and increase economic activity along the route, as has occurred with light rail projects such as the E Line in Los Angeles County. Underutilized areas along the route could be reappropriated for denser transit-oriented development , reducing the need for automobiles among new residents. The Willowick Golf Course in Garden Grove

6816-469: The right-of-way of city streets, but which mostly operate in exclusive rights-of-way. A few North American 'light rail' systems date to the "first" streetcar era, such as Boston's Green Line , Cleveland's Blue and Green Lines , Mexico City's Xochimilco Light Rail , and the light rail system in Newark, New Jersey , and so can be considered "holdovers" or "legacies" from that era. The term light rail

6912-636: The service in 2020. The streetcar will partially follow the historic route of the Pacific Electric interurban railway's Santa Ana Line , whose Red Cars operated between Santa Ana and Downtown Los Angeles via the West Santa Ana Branch right-of-way starting in 1905. The Santa Ana Line began at the old Southern Pacific Station (now demolished) at Terminal Street just south of the current Santa Ana train station, and traversed downtown Santa Ana via 4th Street. Service to Orange County

7008-660: The standard version. The San Diego Trolley and the Salt Lake City TRAX systems have purchased the US variants. The Avantos built for France have a length of 36.68 m (120 ft 4 in). The major change between the S70 and the S700 is the seating in the center section of the vehicle. The S700 has longitudinal seating in this section with passengers facing the aisle, while the S70 had more traditional seating with passengers sitting four-across, facing forward or back, with an aisle in between. This 2013 change, which

7104-550: The streetcar systems in San Francisco, Boston, Newark , Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland , as well as Mexico City . The Newark, Philadelphia, and Boston systems run into subways downtown, while the Pittsburgh and San Francisco systems have tunnels under large hills that had no acceptable road alternatives for bus replacements. The St. Charles Avenue line in New Orleans runs down the park-like "neutral ground" in

7200-476: The system as the "South Lake Union Trolley" giving it the amusing but unfortunate acronym of "SLUT". A line serving First Hill opened in January 2016 and feeds Central Link , the light rail system that opened in 2009. Construction of an extension that will connect the two lines is set to begin in early 2018. A new rail line which opened in Tacoma, Washington in 2003, Tacoma Link , is sometimes referred to as

7296-523: The time the holding companies owned an interest in American transit systems, more than 300 cities converted to buses. The holding companies only owned an interest in the transit systems of less than fifty of those cities. GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize

7392-672: The train station, the streetcar route runs west along Santa Ana Boulevard to downtown Santa Ana and the Santa Ana Civic Center , the main administrative center for the City of Santa Ana and the County of Orange, where an estimated 38,000 jobs are located. The route will split at Mortimer Street onto existing one-way streets with westbound service continuing on Santa Ana Boulevard through Civic Center, while returning eastbound service will travel on 4th Street (two blocks south), through

7488-418: The vehicle maintenance and storage facility. In December 2016 OCTA released a request for proposals for the manufacturing and delivery of the light rail vehicles. Construction is planned to start in 2018, and revenue service was expected to begin in 2020. In March 2018, OCTA placed an order for 8 S70 vehicles (later rebranded as S700 by Siemens), at a cost of $ 51.5 million. By July 2018, costs had increased to

7584-553: The work that Sprague did in Richmond and quickly spread elsewhere. Los Angeles built the largest electric tramway system in the world, which grew to over 1600 km of track. A horse-drawn tramway was commenced in L.A. in 1872. In the first decade of the 1900s, Henry Huntington was behind this development. Trams ran in the city as well as to outlying settlements. Lines radiated from the city as far south as Long Beach . Cars could be coupled, running in multiple-unit operation. All

7680-459: The world's oldest continuously operating streetcar line. From the 1820s to the 1880s urban transit in North America began when horse-drawn omnibus lines started to operate along city streets. Examples included Gilbert Vanderwerken 's 1826 omnibus service in Newark, New Jersey . Before long Omnibus companies sought to boost profitability of their wagons by increasing ridership along their lines. Horsecar lines simply ran wagons along rails set in

7776-456: Was Dallas' M-line which opened in 1989. Memphis opened what ultimately became a larger heritage streetcar system in 1993, while San Francisco restored one of its defunct streetcar lines ( F Market & Wharves ) using heritage streetcar operations in 1995. These heritage systems were followed in the 2000s by new heritage streetcar lines in Kenosha, Tampa, and Little Rock, and the restoration of

7872-475: Was San Francisco and much of its San Francisco cable car system continues to operate to this day. In this transition period some early streetcar lines in large cities opted to rebuild their railways above or below grade to help further speed transit. Such system would become known as rapid transit or later as heavy rail lines. The World Cotton Centennial was held in New Orleans, Louisiana , from December 16, 1884, to June 2, 1885. It featured displays with

7968-446: Was Toronto's. The surviving legacy systems using PCC streetcars have since replaced their PCC cars with modern light rail vehicles, although restored vintage PCC cars are still in regular operation on Boston's Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line , and as well as on San Francisco's restored F Market heritage line . New Orleans' streetcar system also continues to operate a few surviving Perley Thomas cars (along with replica cars). All of

8064-415: Was abandoned by 1961. By 1889 110 electric railways incorporating Sprague's equipment had been started or were planned on several continents. By 1895 almost 900 electric street railways and nearly 11,000 miles (18,000 km) of track had been built in the United States. The rapid growth of streetcar systems led to the widespread ability of people to live outside of a city and commute into it for work on

8160-402: Was adopted by Siemens Mobility in 2019 as a rebranding of a version of the S70 that had been in production since 2014. Versions later branded as the S700 used an adapted form of Siemens' model SF 40 center truck, first used in its SD660 model (first built in 1996 for Portland, Oregon 's MAX Light Rail system) to the S70. This truck allowed longitudinal (sideways-facing) seating to be used in

8256-518: Was built for the European market starting in 2006 and was principally sold to tram-train systems which, in whole or part, share their tracks with heavy rail trains. In Europe, the Siemens Combino and Avenio models are the preferred offerings for purely light rail or tramway systems. In the tram-train market, its principal competitors are Alstom's Flexity and Citadis , as well as CAF 's Urbos series. The first order for S70 vehicles in

8352-572: Was devised in 1972 by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA; the precursor to the U.S. Federal Transit Administration ) to describe new streetcar transformations which were taking place in Europe and being planned in North America. Some notable distinctions between light rail systems and their streetcar predecessors were that: The pioneering "modern" North American light rail system, Edmonton LRT ,

8448-643: Was expected to start operations in 2021, but the project has faced delays and setbacks, including the discovery of human remains at a construction site in September 2020 and lawsuits from Walsh Construction Company in March 2022. As of October 2023, OCTA staff will report a revenue service date of August 2025 to the Federal Transit Administration. Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido has suggested the OC Streetcar system could become "the hub of

8544-546: Was followed by new streetcar lines in Seattle, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and Atlanta. These systems were completely new in every way, operating on new track built specifically for them, and operating with "modern" streetcar vehicles rather than the "heritage" vehicles used in places like Dallas, Memphis and San Francisco. In 2015, the Mineta Transportation Institute released a peer-reviewed research report which used key informant interviews to examine

8640-679: Was made to eliminate a seating layout that had been criticized as cramped and ease the movement of passengers within that section, was the primary design change that led Siemens eventually to adopt (in 2019) the new model number for the modified S70 design. The S700 also has some technology upgrades. Most vehicles are double-ended, with operating controls at both ends and doors on both sides. An exception are 40 cars in service on TriMet 's MAX system, which are single-ended and have cabs at only one end of each car. However, in service they always operate in pairs, coupled back-to-back, so that each consist has operating cabs at both ends. TriMet reverted to

8736-552: Was modeled after street-running light rail services of the Portland Streetcar ( Portland, Oregon ) and TRAX ( Salt Lake City, Utah ). Environmental reports were completed and the project qualified for federal funding status by 2015. Former President Barack Obama included $ 125 million for OC Streetcar in the 2016-17 federal budget under the Major Capital Investments (New Starts) program . In January 2017, Congress approved an additional $ 50 million in funding for

8832-416: Was operating by February 2, 1888. The Richmond system had a large impact upon the burgeoning electric trolley industry. Sprague's use of a trolley pole for D.C. current pick up from a single line (with ground return via the street rails) set the pattern that was to be adopted in many other cities. The North American English use of the term "trolley" instead of "tram" for a street railway vehicle derives from

8928-436: Was reduced to 32 miles (51 km) by 2001, and 9.3 miles (15.0 km) by 2004. The CenterLine was opposed mainly due to its high cost (more than $ 1 billion for the 9.3-mile (15.0 km) segment between Santa Ana and John Wayne Airport ) and was ultimately canceled in 2005. A streetcar along the current, east-west route (the "Santa Ana-Garden Grove Fixed Guideway Corridor") was first proposed by OCTA in 2006. The streetcar

9024-493: Was started in Edmonton in 1974 and became operational on April 22, 1978 – it used mostly European technology, did not use street running, and operated in tunnels in the downtown area (which accounted for much of the high expense of building that system). It was soon followed by light rail systems in San Diego and Calgary in 1981 that used similar vehicles but which avoided the expense of tunnels by using surface alignments and, on

9120-423: Was terminated in 1950 due to the increasing use of automobiles and buses, and the original tracks through town were removed and paved over. West of downtown Santa Ana, the original 100-foot (30 m) wide right of way – purchased by OCTA after its abandonment – remains as a strip of vacant land extending diagonally across Orange County's cardinal street grid , from Santa Ana northwest to Cypress / La Palma on

9216-479: Was the result of OCTA's "Go Local" initiative, which offered funds for Orange County cities to study potential new transit links to existing Metrolink rail stations. The Measure M2 sales tax increase, also known as OC Go, will be partly used to fund transit projects in Orange County, was also passed in 2006. In 2008, the cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove partnered with OCTA to develop the project. The design

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