THE MORE THINGS CHANGE. Streetcars again to bend the corner around in Milwaukee?

Modern streetcars would link downtown attractions and express buses would connect workers to jobs in a new Milwaukee transportation plan advanced by Mayor Tom Barrett.

The plan will not be a reprise of the historic car lines (many of which provided the route numbers for the buses.)

A 3-mile streetcar loop would run along St. Paul Ave., N. 4th St., Juneau Ave. and the combination of N. Jackson St. and N. Van Buren St., linking the Amtrak station, Summerfest, the Shops of Grand Avenue, the Midwest Airlines Center, the Bradley Center and other downtown destinations with service every eight to 10 minutes.

Modern streetcars are a hybrid between the vintage streetcars that run in Kenosha - and once ran in Milwaukee - and the full-scale light rail systems found in Minneapolis, St. Louis and other cities. Like light rail, streetcars run on tracks in streets and are powered by overhead electric wires. But compared with light rail, streetcars cost far less, don't require tearing up streets as much and can run in traffic without a reserved lane, according to streetcar studies in Albuquerque, N.M., and Tucson, Ariz.

That distinction seems extremely fine. To a large extent, what we understand by "light rail" transit often involves investment in electric wire infrastructure and on-car collection devices worthy of the German ICE trains. The Electroliners did well enough, thank you, with trolley poles.

The plan does not envision returning streetcars to Wisconsin Avenue. The photo shows the Plankinton Building, which was an enclosed mall (in those days a "shopping arcade") long before that became The Rage in Downtown Redevelopment.

Image from The Transport Company Web Station
(properly subtitled "Where the Streetcar Bends the Corner Around".)