14 Facts About Portland Streetcar

Portland Streetcar is a streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, that opened in 2001 and serves areas surrounding downtown Portland.

The Portland Streetcar is the first new streetcar system in the United States since World War II.

Since September 2012, the Portland Streetcar system has three services, which share a section along 10th and 11th Avenues in downtown, through the West End.

TriMet and Portland Streetcar have agreed to honor one another's fares, which means that TriMet passes, tickets and bus transfer receipts are accepted on the streetcar, and tickets purchased or validated on a streetcar are valid for travel on TriMet services.

Congressman Peter DeFazio indicated that the contract would go to Oregon Iron Works in Clackamas, Oregon, and that Portland Streetcar would be permitted to keep the prototype vehicle permanently.

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In February 2006, Skoda Transportation established an "exclusive technology transfer agreement" with Oregon Iron Works to build streetcars meeting "Buy America" rules, and the two companies jointly prepared a detailed OIW submission when the city of Portland (owner of the Portland Streetcar system) issued a request for proposals in mid-2006 to build one new streetcar for the Portland Streetcar.

In January 2007, OIW won a contract from Portland to build the prototype streetcar, to the Skoda design, and reported that it had established a new subsidiary, United Streetcar LLC, to perform the work.

On March 21, 2018, Portland Streetcar announced an approval from city council to purchase two new Liberty Streetcars from Brookville Equipment Corporation.

The shorter car length keeps station construction expense lower than would be the case for a light-rail station, but the smaller cars do not provide equal carrying capacity as that of a light-rail train; a single articulated Portland streetcar is only about one-third the length of a two-car MAX train.

Portland Streetcar now owns a truing machine, which has been installed in the left bay of the North Yard.

City of Portland planners began considering a streetcar system in 1990, in response to recommendations in a Central City Plan the council had adopted in 1988.

In 2005 the Portland Streetcar project was awarded the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence gold medal.

In January 2018, Portland Streetcar started exploring adding service to Montgomery Park in the Northwest Industrial District.

In 2005, Toronto Transit Commission officials visited Portland to evaluate the Skoda streetcars for possible use on Toronto's streetcar system, as the smaller size is suitable for the city's extensive street-running mixed-traffic operations.