page_title: Tram
section_title: United States of America
hierarchical_section_title: Tram / By region / North America / United States of America
caption_attribution_description: Car 005 of the Portland Streetcar system, a 2001 Škoda/Inekon 10T, is leaving the Broadway Bridge (in Portland, Oregon), on the B Loop service, a counterclockwise loop. The Broadway Bridge is a bascule-type drawbridge that was completed in 1913 and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It has carried streetcars from 1913 to 1940 and again since 2012.
context_page_description: A tram is a rail vehicle that runs on tramway tracks along public urban streets; some include segments of segregated right-of-way. The lines or networks operated by tramcars as public transport are called tramways or simple tram. Historically the terms electric street railways and trolley was also used in the United States. In the United States, the term tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tired trackless trains, which are unrelated to other kinds of trams.
  Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Today, most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector. In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight.
  Trams are now commonly included in the wider term "light rail", which also includes grade-separated systems. Some trams, known as tram-trains, may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems.
context_section_description: Pittsburgh had kept most of its streetcar system serving the city and many suburbs, making it the longest-lasting large-network streetcar system in the United States. However, most of Pittsburgh's surviving streetcar lines were converted to light rail in the 1980s. San Francisco's Muni Metro system is the largest surviving streetcar system in the United States, and has even revived previously closed streetcar lines such as the F Market & Wharves heritage streetcar line. In the late 20th century, several cities installed modern light rail systems, in part along the same corridors as their old streetcars systems, the first of these being the San Diego Trolley in San Diego in 1981.
  In the 1980s, some cities in the United States brought back streetcars lines, including Memphis, Tampa, and Little Rock; However, these streetcar systems were designed as heritage streetcar lines, and used vintage or replica-vintage vehicles. The first "second-generation streetcar systems" in North America was opened in Portland in 2001. The "second-generation streetcar system," utilizes modern vehicles – vehicles that feature low-floor streetcars. These newer streetcar systems were built in several American cities in the early 21st century including Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington, D.C..
caption: Opened in 2001, the Portland Streetcar was the first (non-heritage) tram network established in North America in decades.
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