As part of an effort to bring a streetcar line to Downtown Los Angeles, two LA filmmakers produced this tidy little video. It extols the economic and social benefits of streetcar service, and provides nifty computer-generated visualizations of what modern streetcars might look like operating in downtown LA. As an added bonus, the introduction to the video includes some nice historic footage of LA’s streetcar fleet before it was abandoned in 1963:Here’s the complete video:
How does a video suddenly “go viral” after more than a century? Amazingly, we’re hearing from people all over the world, asking about a video (or more accurately, a film) made on Market Street that has gained 1,100,000 views on You Tube at this writing. Here’s the You Tube version — but it’s only a shadow of what we have.
Over the course of a few days last weekend, Muni replaced a large section of streetcar railbed around the intersection of 18th and Church streets near Dolores Park in San Francisco.
The project is part of the J Church Improvement Project, but the vintage streetcars of the F Line will benefit as well, as they too traverse this stretch of rail while traveling to and from their base camp at the Geneva Yard.
Happily, a few amateur infrastructuralists were on hand document the work, and it’s interesting stuff to see. Apart from the photos above, one neighbor also produced a short video of the project, which you can watch here:
Muni tries to pull its Milan “Peter Witt” trams in from F-line service by 9:00pm because of community complaints about their noise. No such restrictions in their hometown. Check out this incredible parade of various Milan trams, from twins of Muni’s Milanos to the latest seven-truck supertram.
