Relic may be rolling again

On a winter's evening six decades ago, Sacramento's last two streetcars trundled quietly into retirement, pushed aside by the city's booming postwar car culture.

Sacramento streets had gone modern. Cars were unchallenged kings of the road, and Sacramentans were loving it.

"Everybody was buying cars," says lifelong Sacramentan Donald Rivett. "People were putting on the dog."

But times change, and so do ideas of what's modern.

Faced with congestion, parking woes and bland streetscapes, Sacramento planners have reached an ironic conclusion:

They want streetcars back, and soon.

Sacramento and West Sacramento hope to build a $53 million-plus streetcar rail line that would traverse the Tower Bridge and venture a mile into each city's downtown – and do it within the next four years.

The ambitious plan faces challenges. It will require a high level of cooperation between two sometimes cross-river rival cities. It'll also need unprecedented buy-in from local landowners: Officials say property owners will be asked to pay a good chunk of the cost.

Yet advocates remain hopeful.

"I think it's a terrific return to the past," Sacramento City Councilman Ray Tretheway said. "I think people will get it."

Sacramento wouldn't be the first city to rediscover the old-school charm of trolleys as it remodels its downtown into a live-work neighborhood for people tired of suburban commutes.

For nearly a decade, sleek new streetcar lines have popped up from Kenosha in Wisconsin, to Little Rock in Arkansas and Portland, Ore.

These trolleys are not just transportation devices, planners say. They are "placemakers."

Cities like Portland boast gleaming and glassy streetcars with sleek profiles and bright colors that exude cool.

San Francisco runs picturesque vintage streetcars that appeal to nostalgia.

Seattle's new line, in its South Lake Union area, captured national attention and some snickering recently when officials decided – thinking of the acronym – to call it the South Lake Union Streetcar, not trolley.

Even with a modern face, today's streetcars share the limitations of their clanging ancestors.

They don't go far. They don't go fast. They get stuck in traffic. And they require overhead electric wires.

But if done right, officials said, streetcars are magnets, attracting street life, stimulating development, and allowing downtowners to keep the car garaged all day – perhaps all week.

Portland is the paragon of the new streetcar movement and inspiration for Sacramento and other cities.

"They really got it right. They nailed it," said Jim Graebner of the American Public Transportation Association.

Portland's decision in the 1990s to build a streetcar through an old railyard helped create the now-famous Pearl District.

That district thrives, Portland developer Sue Miller said, in good part because its residences, offices, stores, restaurants and parks are linked by transit more appealing than buses.

Ben Andrews, who lives in a Pearl District condominium midrise called "Streetcar Lofts," says the neighborhood feels like a small piece of Manhattan.

"People will say, 'I took the streetcar,' to sound cool," Andrews said. "It's part of the whole going-green thing."

A few planners in Sacramento have talked about streetcar lines in Rancho Cordova, Roseville and Lincoln, and around Arden Fair.

But streetcars are useful only in dense urban environments.

That's exactly what West Sacramento officials hope a streetcar will help them build. They want to turn the nearly blank industrial Triangle area around Raley Field into an extension of downtown Sacramento, with offices, hotels and residential high-rises.

Val Toppenberg, West Sacramento redevelopment head, said streetcars would give their plans a shot in the arm.

He's toured Portland's Pearl District and sees similarities. "I think we can expect the same results here."

Officials say choosing the initial route is a balance between usability and affordability.

The plan of the moment is to run the line from West Sacramento City Hall, past Raley Field and the waterfront Triangle area.

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• Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.