As Fresno's population grows, so does its traffic congestion, especially in bustling areas such as downtown, the Fresno Business Journal reports. For many, it is apparent that a streetcar system, reminiscent of the one Fresno residents used up until the late 1930s, will be the key to curbing the flow of traffic in the future while bringing visitors and economic stimulation to the city's core.

For more than two years now, FastTrack Fresno County has been exploring the streetcar option and several other transit opportunities to go into its Public Transportation Infrastructure Study geared towards reducing urban sprawl, improving air quality and preserving agricultural land. An association of Fresno County, the 15-city Fresno Council of Governments, Fresno Area Express and the Clovis Stageline, the group will hold a focus group August 4 to discuss feasibility of the project.

Julie Eldridge, project manager with FastTrack Fresno County, said a streetcar system circulating along major corridors such as Van Ness Avenue and Fresno Street would serve an economic function by giving commuters the convenience of visiting local shops and restaurants without the long haul and wait times of a Fresno Area Express (FAX) bus.

"Part of stimulating downtown is bringing people from downtown neighborhoods in an attractive way," Eldridge said. "You can't just make transit more attractive. You have to put more people in proximity to transit corridors."

Eldridge said a conservative estimate was about $10 million per mile for an electric streetcar rail, about on par with similar systems in Kenosha, Wis., Little Rock, Ark., Tampa Bay, Fla., or Portland, Ore., where construction of a second line is currently under construction to serve its downtown area.

Throwing off the comparison is the fact that some cities don't include the cost of the streetcar itself in their projections, Eldridge said. Also, different styles of streetcars vary dramatically in price. A quiet, low-maintenance and more maneuverable modern streetcar typically costs around $3 million while a slightly slower vintage trolley holding fewer passengers and lacking the ability to reverse directions could go for as little as $900,000.

These options and others will also go before the focus group of downtown business and property owners today at the Fresno Chamber. That meeting, and another among the Fresno Council of Governments' Transportation Advisory Committee on Aug. 4, will address the feasibility of such an investment, especially during economically sour times when tax money is tight and any development is painfully slow.

"All we can do is make recommendations and ask that if Fresno decided to go forward with streetcar, that they do it in concert with other redevelopment activities like bringing in major employers," said Eldridge, who expected that the final study will be complete by the end of the year, after which grants from the Federal Transportation Commission and other sources could be applied for.

FastTrack Fresno County has also posed the streetcar solution to Fresno planners to consider as they develop both the Downtown Neighborhoods and Community Plan and the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan. The latter plan, a blueprint of various features and architectural styles to frame downtown, will be hashed out as Pasadena-based architecture consultant firm Moule & Polyzoides leads a week-long session in September to identify the type of infrastructure and design that will revitalize and bring more business to the area.

According to the city's Downtown Revitalization Manager Elliott Balch, new transit of any sort will create the kind of easy-flow circulation to important downtown destinations that will be the key to economic revival sought for in the area but it will also require some serious foresight to implement and maintain.

"If you're going to have streetcar you're going to have high-density transit-oriented development around it," Balch said, "and if you're going to have high-density transit-oriented development around it, you better have sewage and water and you better have the kind of architecture that fits."

Fresno's first streetcar railroad was built in 1888, originally pulled by mules until it was taken over by Fresno City Railway Co. and converted in 1902 to electric where trolleys were pulled along a track by a system of overhead wires. During its heyday in the 1920s, there were 50 miles of track as far north as the San Joaquin River. The trolley was eventually shut down in 1939 when rubber tire buses became the norm.