[PRCo] No return in Pittsbugh

[Jerry Matt Matsick]

--
Jerry "Matt" Matsick 
>From Jacksonville 
Where FLORIDA begins!

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Streetcars of desire
Saturday, November 17, 2007 


While surfing the Web recently I came upon Bill Steigerwald's column on the return of modest streetcar lines to a dozen cities from Portland to Miami and his opinion that they are unlikely to ever return to Pittsburgh's streets ("Return of the streetcar," Jan. 14 and PghTrib.com). 
In Europe, streetcars are being revived in places where only 20 years ago one would have thought it highly improbable. The most significant country is France, where major cities such as Nice, Marseille and suburbs of Paris have reinstated them and are adding routes. 
It is extremely unfortunate that after the Port Authority's takeover of Pittsburgh Railways in 1964, in addition to what make up the "T" now, key surface routes such as Liberty Avenue, Forbes/5th Avenue, Ardmore Boulevard and McKeesport were not rehabilitated and given new rolling stock. But nobody was thinking like that in the 1960s