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Beginning in 2010, the City of Detroit set upon a path towards the construction of a new streetcar line, the first such project of its kind to grace Motor City since the last PCC car rolled down Woodward Avenue 60 years ago. Once complete, the 3.3-mile QLINE will be a far cry from the transit legacy of Detroit's streetcar heyday, which spanned a nearly 100-year period between the Civil War and the 1950s, and witnessed the construction of the largest light rail network ever constructed in the history of the United States. With nearly 500 miles (800 kilometres) at its height throughout the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and more than 1,000 cars in constant operation along with an annual ridership of nearly 500 million passengers at its peak, Detroit's streetcar network was once the pride of Motor City. This edition of Once Upon a Tram will explore the fascinating past, present, and future of Detroit's public transportation legacy.
Following the Great Detroit Fire of 1805, local resident and Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward drew up a new radial plan for Detroit, with the reconstructed city centre following the rational planning models then in vogue in Europe. Radiating outward from the core, broad avenues were to spread towards the edges of the city and lined with grand architectural edifices, trees, and street lamps. The comprehensive plan was a precursor to the City Beautiful Movement that would come to define urban planning for the latter half of the nineteenth century.
While Woodward's vision was only partially adopted, the majority of the main arteries, including Woodward Avenue, were built using the radial model, leaving downtown Detroit with a distinctive urban layout to this day. Fast-forwarding to the early 1860s, Detroit's population rose from just over 1,000 in 1800, to 45,000. In 1862, Detroit City Council commenced the search for a means by which public transit could be implemented in the city, a process which carried through into early 1863. The Detroit City Railway Company, which began to lay tracks along Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit, was the first generation of mass transit in the city and operated horse trolleys from 1863 to 1895.
Starting in the late 1880s, the Detroit Street Railway Company — a new entity that effectively swallowed up all of the various private street rail companies that had been in operation over the years — began the electrification of Detroit's streetcar network began, a multi-year process that was completed in 1893. Following a celebratory final ride through downtown on November 9, 1895, the last horse-car was unceremoniously torn apart by the jubilant crowd, The Sunday News-Tribune reporting that "The car had practically passed into history. The trucks were left, but little more could be said about the car."
Following electrification, the last of the city's independent street rail companies were brought under sole private ownership, amalgamated in 1900 as the newly minted Detroit United Railway, which grew and expanded the network until its public takeover in 1921. Meanwhile, throughout this period, the Interurban Electric Railway was introduced, featuring an extensive network of suburban commuter rail lines that were able to ferry workers and other passengers in and out of central Detroit en masse. Aiding this era of mass urban and interurban rail expansion was the fact that by 1910, the population of Detroit had ballooned to 465,000, growing to 1 million by 1920, and 1.5 million by 1930.
By the 1940s, Detroit boasted by far the most extensive streetcar network in the United States, rivalled only by the totality of New York's Five Boroughs, which together comprised a similar-sized network of roughly 500 miles of track. Below, a 1941 system map highlights the extent of Detroit's streetcar network at its peak, with service reaching nearly every major street in the downtown core, and supported by an impressive inner city range that would have served the majority of Detroit's original streetcar suburbs. Paired with the Interurban Electric Railway, with which the streetcar network was heavily intertwined, it was more than feasible to get by without a car in the Motor City from the turn of the last century to the end of the Second World War.
Following the end of the Second World War, the Department of Street Railways found itself in a similar situation to numerous other such transit services across North America, at a crossroads between updating and continuing with electric street rail, or moving to a total reliance upon motorized buses. Though plans set in motion in 1945 would ultimately see streetcars scrapped in favour of buses, which were seen as more efficient and less of an obstacle to the rapidly rising number of automobiles on the roads, Detroit City Council would oversee the purchase of a sizeable fleet of modern PCC cars, which would serve to help ease the transition from street rail to bus service over the next decade.
In an effort to both save on the projected costs of a system-wide overhaul of Detroit's street rail track and streetcar fleet, as well as to combat the rapidly rising problem of traffic congestion, especially at rush hour, the Department of Street Railways entered into a decade-long period of decline, gradually phasing out one route after another. By 1956, there remained only limited streetcar service along Gratiot and Woodward, the latter to become the site of the fleet's final run on April 8, 1956. Having already secured its sale to Mexico City in 1955, the entirety of Detroit's 183-car PCC fleet, which had only been in operation in Detroit for less than ten years, was shipped south in late 1956. Concluding nearly a century of operation, Detroit's street rail era ended with a massive procession of 24 PCC cars down Woodward Avenue, carrying 2,000 lucky passengers who had been fortunate enough to secure a spot for the final ride.
Fast-forwarding to today, with the construction of the QLINE now well underway, it appears that the first streetcar line built and operated within Detroit in over 60 years may very well be a sign of the slow comeback of Motor City. Featured in a recent edition of Cityscape, which covered the long decline of Detroit from America's wealthiest city to its present day status as an urban prairie Motor City has been in dire need of this type of city-building project for decades. The only light rail service in the city for the last three decades has been the much-maligned Detroit People Mover, which features a very limited reach and ridership, and has been by most accounts an underperforming piece of public infrastructure.
The QLINE, known officially as the M-1 Rail Project after its route along Woodward Avenue (M-1), will stretch from the Financial District to Midtown, travelling along Woodward for a stretch of 3.3 miles (five kilometres) and connecting passengers to both the Detroit People Mover at one end and the Amtrak commuter rail hub at the other. Though nowhere near as long as it was originally proposed, having shrunk from nine to three miles and an estimated projected cost of $500 million down to $125 million, the QLINE represents a major move forward for the long-troubled City of Detroit as the first major piece of public transportation infrastructure built in 30 years.
Set to open in 2017, the completion of the QLINE will conclude four years of disruption on Detroit's city streets. The sight of modern LRT trains moving up and down Woodward Avenue will be welcomed by all those in favour of restoring Detroit's light rail legacy, one piece at a time.
Thus endowed with a transit legacy that stretches back to the Civil War, Detroit's complex relationship with light rail has been a central part of the city's history for more than 150 years. While the arrival of a single piece of infrastructure cannot hope to bring the city back to life singlehandedly, the mere presence of this first significant step toward rebuilding the inner city is a welcome sign of things to come.
SkyriseCities will return soon with a new edition of Once Upon a Tram, which will take an in-depth look at the transit legacy of a city near you. In the meantime, feel free to join the conversation in the comments section below. Got an idea for this series? Let us know!
