By Joseph Morales

Trolleys were once a widespread and reliable means of getting around New York City and many other cities in the United States. Trolley lines were once just as widespread as today’s bus routes across cities. Since most Americans in cities took mass transit to work, trolleys had plenty of riders and the companies that operated them often made large profits. Unfortunately for the companies, the rise of the automobile led to cars often blocking trolley tracks and creating congestion which caused delays. According to the Daily News, trolleys were also considered old-fashioned by many due to the noises they made, such as “screeching wheels and clanging bells,” along with their wheels losing traction on icy inclines during the winter. This led to many NYC companies converting their trolley services into bus services and most bus routes run by the MTA today are the semblance of a former trolley line. 

                     While buses may have been better than trolleys in many ways, we are all too familiar with their shortcomings. New York City buses often have many issues, such as being stuck in traffic, showing up in pairs, and sometimes just being unreliable for their passengers. The NYCDOT often implements various strategies, such as bus lanes and transit signal priority to speed up buses with varying levels of success. Figuring out how to improve surface transit along routes without subway service has undoubtedly been one of the city’s most pressing transportation challenges. 

                      Could a return to the trolley be part of the solution? Philadelphia, the second-largest city in the Northeast and the sixth-largest city in the country, is one of the only American cities to have a vast, functioning trolley system. Trolleys are prevalent across the city, from the bustling area of Center City, which can be compared to Midtown, to areas of Southwestern Philadelphia on the city’s outskirts. Some routes even run into suburban areas throughout Delaware County, located just outside of Philadelphia. Rather than running on the side of streets, most trolleys run in the center to avoid traffic along with obstructions such as double-parked vehicles. This setup also allows for other forms of infrastructure to be on the side of the road, such as bike lanes. In fact, several streets in Philadelphia and Delaware County have center-running trolley tracks and some streets also have bike lanes on the side, making for true multimodal streets.

                 To see if trolleys could work in NYC, we need to consider how the trolley system works in Philadelphia and if can meet New York’s transportation needs. As stated earlier, trolleys in Philadelphia operate throughout neighborhoods with densities very similar to many areas of NYC. Trolleys do have several upsides such as offering the capacity to hold substantially more riders. For reference, a modern streetcar can hold 150-350 passengers while MTA articulated buses have a capacity of about 115 passengers. While SEPTA’s newest trolleys purchased in 2023 only have a capacity of 120, a five passenger difference could decide whether or not the rear doors close quickly or not when the bus is crowded, which substantially impacts reliability. Outside of capacity, trolleys tend to be more efficient with power delivered by overhead wires leading to no street-level exhaust. 

                    Based on this alone, trolleys can help resolve much of NYC’s bus crowding issues particularly on major routes such as the Bx12-SBS(Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd) and M15-SBS(First/Second Avenues). Additionally, New Yorkers in areas with higher asthma rates such as the South Bronx and Northern Manhattan would especially benefit from less emissions caused by mass transit vehicles. 

                    However, there are some downsides. For one, trolleys having center-running tracks in some spots does not always speed them up. A quick look at some commute times from the Southern and Western parts of Philly where trolleys are most prevalent into Center City is just about what you would expect for buses. In a city known for transit projects that are extremely expensive, New Yorkers may not really care for a new service without as clearly tangible benefits as reduced travel times.

                     Given trolleys’ upsides and downsides, whether or not it works in New York City is largely dependent on where trolleys run along with whether people want them. Trolleys clearly provide the most benefits, in the most densely populated areas of cities and when they can move at higher speeds. Trolleys like buses, can also benefit from numerous street design features, such as isolated lanes and transit-signal priority that help it move faster especially if operating in the center of the road. Hence, trolleys can definitely be a game changer for riders on New York’s busiest bus routes, such as the Bx12-SBS(Fordham Rd), M15-SBS(First/Second Aves), and B46-SBS(Utica Ave) should trolley service like this exists. Additionally, in Center City, SEPTA has an underground tunnel known as the Center City Tunnel where certain trolley routes converge to avoid heavy aboveground traffic in Philly’s Central Business District. If the MTA can build similar tunnels and run trolleys at major arteries such as Downtown Jamaica and Flushing in Queens, Fordham Rd in The Bronx, and near the Williamsburg Bus Terminal in Brooklyn, it could lead to much faster transit service for many. 

               However, some constraints would include whether or not residents and visitors in a certain community want a trolley. This could be in part due to the perceived noise of having a new type of transit vehicle on the streets. As trolleys do not make noise, this may be a misconception that the MTA has to ease the public about. In addition, many may be concerned about losing driving/parking space should the MTA designate trolley-only lanes. As you can see, much of New York’s enduring issues when it comes to dividing street space between transit and cars would remain. However, the transit could be more impactful than existing transit if implemented well in the correct places. Trolleys may not be for everywhere, as it would be a significant and expensive effort to build trolley infrastructure in a city without it. So, the MTA would likely need to be selective as to where trolleys would be most appropriate in NYC should it want to add them to its array of transit modes. While there are some trolleys in Philly’s suburbs, it is important to note that these lines as far back as at least 1902, when the mobility needs of the region were much different. 

                 So, what would it be like if NYC built a streetcar? Other American cities with less transit ridership such as Seattle, Atlanta and Washington, DC have all built trolley lines in recent years. These lines, branded as streetcars are larger than Philadelphia’s and look very similar to a light rail. The construction of streetcar lines in these cities has ranged from $13M-$200M for lines between 1 and 3 miles. Unfortunately, these lines are often considered to be slow and expensive for their marginal benefits. In the case of Atlanta’s streetcar, the streetcar moves at 5 mph which is not much faster than a human walking. In DC, a group known as Transit Enthuasists of DC ran an experiment that concluded that its streetcar was slower than an adjacent bus line,  However, these streetcars are all similar in that they were not built with their own right of way or any other infrastructure designed to give them priority in mixed traffic. 

                   Our city, however, had a different plan to avoid these mistakes. In 2016, former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a streetcar line dubbed the Brooklyn-Queens Connector(BQX) to connect communities along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. The route would have connected Astoria to Sunset Park and served some of the most densely populated areas of the city outside of Manhattan. The areas this route would have served also had scarce and overcrowded transit options nearby to make the same trips. Unlike other streetcars in the U.S, this route would have operated in its own right of way for 90% of its route. Between the route selection and the right-of-way, the BQX truly had the potential to be a very successful line and a model to the rest of the country. Unfortunately, between cost overruns and the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan completely flopped. However, when seeing that many commutes woud have been substantially reduced under the BQX proposal, the planning of the BQX could still be seen as a model for what trolleys can one day look like in NYC.  

                       As trolleys are prevalent in Philadelphia and across the country, it is interesting to think about how they could work here in New York City. Since surface transit is one of our biggest challenges, it is interesting to see how we could implement new and old technologies to address our surface transit deficits. Whether its trolleys or something else, it is intriguing to wonder what modes of travel New York can have in years to come.

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