Streetcar

There is no streetcar. There was research regarding creating a streetcar route. The proposed route serviced The RAPID Central Station to the 6th Street bridge mostly on the Monroe St corridor. The group behind the streetcar project made an announcement roughly once or twice a year from ~2007 - ~2016, creating a bit of a media buzz, before going silent again. The financing for the project was anticipated to be mostly private, or a joint public-private partnership.

The streetcar project was positioned relative to the future of the DASH circulators as downtown does need a high-frequency circulatory of some type. If that solution, post-DASH, includes a streetcar remains to be seen. Or the city could abandon mobility as a focus, as we have seen in cities across the nation since ~2015.

Streetcars were a hot topic in the late 2000s and early 2010s. At least twelve (12) streetcar routes were under construction in American cities circa 2015. The interest in the mode faded dramatically with the shift in the American civic landscape as the federal government turned its back on American cities and the tone of municipal government shifted from ambitious to defeated.

News

• 2007-11: Clang Clang Clang Went Grand Rapids, RapidGrowth
• 2008-07: Original 2008 Feasibility Study (PDF), The RAPID
• 2014-02
  • $80 million streetcar plan for Grand Rapids back in play, MLive
  • 2 possible streetcar routes in Grand Rapids: Which is best?, MLive
• 2016-12: Where bikes, streetcars fit into the future of Grand Rapids streets, MLive

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Related

• Everything you need to know about the streetcar craze, VOX 2015-07-08