Streetcars in Grand Rapids! Should They Make a Comeback?

Transportation around Grand Rapids sure has evolved from horses to street cars, and trolleys, to cars and buses.

Looking back, the year was 1896. The view is downtown Grand Rapids looking down Monroe Street, now Monroe Center.

The streetcar, electric if you'll notice the overhead wires, rolled along the downtown city streets picking up passengers to be dropped off at their next destination.

MONROE IN 1928

Flash forward 32 years to 1928, looking down the same stretch of Monroe it had changed quite a bit. There were lots of cars on the brick-paved street, but the streetcar tracks were still there.

Two years earlier the electric coach arrived. For the next nine years Grand Rapids had the most modern streetcar system in the country!

Sadly, the system was disbanded in 1935. The automobile had become too popular and the tracks were taken up, and that was that.

City buses began transporting passengers around the city as more and more cars filled city streets, along with parking lots, parking garages, and ramps.

What do you think? Should Grand Rapids resurrect a streetcar system?

Back several years a Trolley Car system was tried, no tracks, but it just didn't catch on. Later on, the Rapid bus system put the DASH buses to work. DASH (Downtown Area Shuttle) was created to move people around downtown.

DASH SHUTTLE 1999

The DASH system has modernized quite a bit since 1999, and is totally FREE!  Ride the Rapid says it is especially good for connecting downtowners, workers, and visitors from the outer DASH parking lots to businesses and entertainment downtown.

So, street cars on tracks through downtown? It would be fun, but probably not in our future.