Charleston — Groups Suggest Streetcars

December 2014

Railway Age reports that some in Charleston are proposing bringing streetcars back to this South Carolina community.

Proposals for streetcars have floated and died during the past decade, but a recent tour for transit activists, at a meeting in September 2014 aboard the Lowcountry Loop Trolley service using rubber-tired tourist "trolleys," has revived the idea again.

An advocacy group, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, announced its founding on Dec. 17, 2014, in part to pursue rail transit options. The group is an offshoot of another group, Hungryneck Straphangers, which has existed for five years.

Both groups plan to work to persuade Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA), the regional public transit authority, to consider the idea.

Streetcar service in Charleston ended in February 1938.

A news report in the Post and Courier provided more background on the type of streetcar that might be used in Charleston. Consultant Gabe Klein recommended a hydrogen fuel cell powered streetcar as used on a tourist line in Oranjestad, Aruba (see below).