The proposed Downtown L.A. Streetcar will be an approximately 4-mile urban streetcar system which would run 7-days a week, about 18 hours a day.  It would serve areas including Bunker Hill, Grand Avenue and the Music Center, Historic Broadway and the Historic Core, South Park, L.A. LIVE and the Los Angeles Convention Center.

A new awareness campaign for L.A. Streetcar has hit the streets.  Keep an eye out Downtown for more than a dozen bus stops/shelter ads and a billboard, too.  Advertising space was donated to L.A. Streetcar Inc by CBS Decaux.  The campaign is based on connections the streetcar will bring:

SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DOWNTOWN CONNECTS:

Jury duty at the Civic Center...Classic Movie on Broadway

High Tops at Staples...High Heels in the Historic Core

Fresh Tomatoes on 9th...Dinner Party in Your Loft

Dinner at L.A. Live...Concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall

 

 

Efforts to develop a streetcar system in Downtown have been discussed for many years, but the idea started taking for and becoming a unified plan and Downtown-wide effort through Bringing Back Broadway. Now, much progress has been made and the streetcar is moving from dream to reality. Cities across the country have recognized the benefits of streetcars in providing an environmentally friendly, ADA-compliant, efficient, attractive, user-friendly way for residents, workers, and tourists alike to better connect to public transit and get to where they want and need to go without using a single occupancy vehicle. Streetcars are a much-needed “last mile” solution. They are also proven drivers of economic development, catalyzing urban revitalization and providing a significant return on public-private investment by vastly increasing pedestrian activity and street life, which results in greater commercial activity. Streetcars are a win-win.  L.A. can be next!

MILESTONES

There is incredible consensus and support for a downtown streetcar system, as evidenced by the public events and activites thus far.  Los Angeles Streetcar Inc. (501c3) has been formed to raise private funds for partnership in designing, planning & implementing downtown streetcar.  The Downtown L.A. Streetcar is included in the Metro Long Range Transportation Plan. More than 200 people have commented on proposed alignments at public workshops and events, and the project is entering environmental review at METRO. A streetcar delegation to Portland & Seattle included two dozen downtown leaders to speak with city leaders about how their streetcar systems were developed – and to learn from their experience. The Los Angeles National Streetcar Conference was held at the historic Orpheum Theatre on Broadway – the largest conference of its kind in the U.S. with experts from across the country discussing streetcar funding, planning and implementation. A public awareness campaign about how the streetcar will help us connect downtown hit the streets earlier this year and the response was overwhelmingly positive.  Active advocacy with the METRO Regional Connector project will ensure connectivity between Broadway and the streetcar, and efforts were successful advocating for the study of an underground build option with an inter-modal station at Broadway. Civic leaders Eli Broad of the Broad Foundations, Tim Leiweke of AEG/L.A. Live and Rick Caruso of Caruso Affiliated joined at L.A. Live in September for a “Get On Board” fundraiser and support-building event which was a huge success to help L.A. Streetcar Inc. The co-hosts joined forces to highlight their belief in the economic, cultural, transportation and livability benefits a modern streetcar system would bring to Downtown, and the operational funding raised will help the non-profit continue to work with the community, property owners, the city and transit agencies to advance the streetcar effort. 

COST & BUDGET 

The streetcar project is estimated to cost $110M, typical of per-mile streetcar projects in other cities. As in most cities implementing modern streetcar systems, funding will necessarily be a blend of public and private sources. CRA/LA has allocated the first $10M and several million dollars of federal funding is pending through the reauthorization of the SAFETEA-LU transportation bill. Once the environmental process is complete and local, private sector funding is locked in, the project will be eligible for Urban Circulator, TIGER and / or Small Starts federal funding in the tens of millions of dollars.

Find out more about the streetcar project, proposed routes, and view a video about how a streetcar will connect all of Downtown and further the revitalization of the entire community at www.LAStreetcar.org

 

Fact sheets from L.A. Streetcar Inc. regarding the streetcar project can be found by clicking the links below:

Leadership & Funding

Transit & Mobility

Economic Development

Business Development

Streetcar Case Studies from Other Cities

HISTORY OF THE STREETCAR

The historic streetcar long-served as a popular mode of transportation along Broadway during the early and mid-1900's.  In fact the Los Angeles Streetcar system, operated by Pacific Electric, had developed into the largest system in the world by the 1920's and was utilized by residents and visitors alike, opening travel to new areas and allowing access to neighborhoods miles from the city center for the first time. 

However, by 1961, the public will indicated that the freeways were the priority for Los Angeles, and so we saw the last of the Los Angeles streetcar system. 

 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STREETCAR

WHY STREETCARS?

  • The streetcar will provide a transportation circulation system which will allow people to get Downtown however they choose, whether by riding the bus, taking the subway or driving a car, and then use the streetcar to circulate from one destination to another without getting back into a car.

  • Modern streetcars are environmentally friendly and transit ridership has doubled and tripled in cities with streetcars.  Modern streetcars are clean, quiet, accessible, and they run in the line of traffic just like any other vehicle.  There are no cumbersome steps to climb up - just step off the curb, and right on the streetcar.

  • Streetcars also have incredible impacts on economic development when they are implemented in the right place in the right way.  As has been the case in other west coast cities, such as Seattle, San Diego, Portland and Tacoma, the streetcar will be an economic driver for the revitalization of Downtown, linking our past to our revitalized future.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST AND HOW WILL WE PAY FOR IT?

  • The project is estimated at $100-125M, typical of modern streetcar per mile project costs in other cities.
  • The models used to fund modern streetcars systems in other cities are public-private partnerships
  • In Portland, the private sector funded about 30 or 40% of the initial line
  • In Seattle about 50% was privately funded
  • A non-profit, LA Streetcar Inc has been formed to move the project forward among the property owners who have stepped up to say they want a streetcar and are willing to fund it. 
  • There are a number of public sources which can be used to fill gaps in financing and funding
  • CRA/LA has committed $10M in funding to support the project.
  • $198,000 was identified by Congressmember Roybal-Allard for studies during the initial phases of the project, and on Dec. 10, 2009, Congress approved the Omnibus Appropriations Measure (HR 3288) which allocates another $250,000 towards the streetcar effort.
  • Several million dollars in federal funding is pending in the reauthorization of the SAFETEA-LU bill.
  • We anticipate being able to achieve 25% - 30% funding from federal grant and/or program sources once our local funding is set.

WHERE WILL THE STREETCAR RUN?

  • We know based on public input in previous years, that the community desire is for a streetcar to run up or down Broadway, as the spine of the approximately 4-mile route.  The route will connect destinations downtown, such as Bunker Hill, Grand Avenue and the Music Center, Historic Broadway and the Historic Core, South Park, L.A. Live and the Los Angeles Convention Center. 
  • Maps of route options under consideration can be found here. 
  • The precise way in which the connections between destinations are made, and the streets which are used, is to be determined, and will be discussed during the upcoming public processes to conduct alternatives analysis and environmental review

WHAT IS LA STREETCAR INC? 

  • LASI is a non-profit which has been formed by property owners who want to design, plan and operate a streetcar system in downtown
  • Because of the large costs involved, and the private sector funding required to make a streetcar system a reality, the need was clear for the private sector to take a strong and active leadership role in the process, which is how LASI was born
  • The LASI board is independent of Bringing Back Broadway, though we are assisting in any way possible.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE AND GET INVOLVED?