Standing at 80-feet tall, a bright red streetcar made a pit stop between Main and Orange Street on Thursday, Nov. 7. Back in early October, the Riverside City Council acquired a $237,000 state grant to pay for a one-year feasibility study by Riverside Reconnects, which would determine whether the electric or light rail vehicle can connect downtown Riverside to UC Riverside, while increasing property values and investments in the region. With the help of its manufacturer, Siemen and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, the streetcar is touring through Riverside to San Diego. According to city officials, nearly 200,000 individuals work, study and reside within the proposed streetcar route in the city of Riverside. Pacific Electric, also referred to as the Red Car system, once consisted of electrically-powered streetcars, light rail and buses in Southern California — making it the largest electric railway system during the 1920s. The mass transit system formerly fell out of favor two decades later, due the emergence of the San Bernardino freeway in 1941 and the Southern California Metrolink in the 1992.
