One man's Idea to have trolleys return to Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, similar to the Montague Street trolleys pictured above, has beed derailed.
Brooklyn Papers: Trolley Idea is Derailed: A Brooklyn man’s dream of restoring the borough’s fabled trolleys looks like it’s being derailed by planners of a waterfront development along the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO shore.
Arthur Melnick, who has spent a decade as a Quixotic promoter of trolleys as clean and efficient transportation, presented planners with his proposal for a three-line streetcar system linking the so-called Brooklyn Bridge Park to Borough Hall, the BAM cultural district and Red Hook.
Several years ago, park planners said they were open to the idea of historic light rail, but this time, they dodged Melnick’s trolleys.
“There are other things like jitneys” that are being explored, said Jee Mee Kim, one of several consultants hired by the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation to study transit links to the waterfront development.
Others indicated that the closest Melnick might get to his dream would be a mere facsimile.
“We could have a jitney [bus] that looks like a trolley, like they have Downtown,” said Hank Gutman, a DBWLDC board member.
