Silver Line

## SDG&E Silver Line History

The Silver Line is the fourth line in the San Diego Trolley system as well as the first circular route with service beginning in 2011. Planning for the Silver Line dates back to the early 1990s, upon the completion of the Downtown Loop, consideration was given to providing a downtown trolley service that circles around the loop. MTS (then MTDB) originally considered using three Vienna Class N1 cars formerly used on the Stadtbahn in the Austrian city of Vienna, but their age and limited power proved incompatible with the present trolley system, and renovations to make them so were considered unfeasible.

Eventually, in 2005, MTS would settle on using PCC streetcars; which were formerly used by the San Diego Electric Railway, San Diego's former transit service, in the 1930s and 40s. Between 2005 and 2010, MTS acquired six PCC streetcars formerly used in San Francisco and Philadelphia, and would partner with the San Diego historic streetcar society, a non-profit organization developed to educate the public of the history of the San Diego Electric Railway, to help restore these streetcars for use on the eventual line.

In early 2011 the first of these streetcars, Car 529, was completed and the inauguration of the Silver Line was held on August 27, 2011. Restoring this car for use in the trolley system required over 3,000 volunteer hours and $850,000 in donations. For the first two weeks of the vintage trolley's run, riders who boarded at the 12th & Imperial Transit Center received "commemorative tickets" to use for boarding the trolley. Due to the limited amount of streetcars, initial service for the line was limited to weekends and holidays every 30 minutes between the hours of 10 am to 2 pm. On December 20, 2011, service was expanded to Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 2 pm as well as weekends and holidays from 11 am to 3:30 pm. It was expected that more service hours will be added upon the completion of additional streetcars.

In 2015, the line was re-named the SDG&E Silver Line after San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) provided a grant to help restore streetcar number 530. The utility company also sponsors a 3rd-grade history curriculum that includes free rides on the line.

## Fleet

The Silver Line Fleet

 PCC Streetcar. St. Louis

## Future extensions

One of the future proposals for trolley expansion is to potentially extend the Silver Line from Downtown up towards Balboa Park and the Uptown communities. MTS began work in March 2011 on a study to evaluate the feasibility of reconnecting Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo and Downtown San Diego through a fixed-guideway, electrified 1.5-mile (2.4 km) streetcar line. The project study corridor runs between the City College Trolley Station area, and Balboa Park, in the vicinity of the San Diego Zoo. An alignment similar to the proposed one was last served by a streetcar system in 1949 on Line 7 (Park Boulevard-University Avenue to East San Diego) & Line 11 (Park Boulevard-Adams Avenue to Kensington). In October 2012, MTS released a study to evaluate the feasibility of reconnecting Balboa Park and downtown San Diego via an electrified streetcar corridor. This is the first step in the process to construct such a project. An initial timeline offered in the study for the project's completion was 5 years. Since October 2012, no further action has been taken.

## Other Notes

* As of April 2020 Silver Line service was suspended due to the current COVID-19 Pandemic, but was later re-launched in June 2021.