Passage
For most of the last century, the city of Larkfield got around downtown on streetcars, until the lines were pulled up in favor of buses. This spring, after decades of debate, the streetcars returned: a single restored line now runs the length of Main Street. The schedule of arrivals and departures 1 are posted at every stop, and the cars glide by every twelve minutes.
The new line connects three places downtown residents visit most2, the market, the library, and the riverfront park. It runs from the old depot3, to the riverfront without stopping in between, a quick ride that has surprised people used to the slower buses. Before the buses replaced them, streetcars 4 run down Main Street every ten minutes, so the return feels to many like a homecoming.
Getting the line built was not simple. The first proposal failed at the ballot box. 5 Likewise, a revised plan, cheaper and shorter, passed easily two years later. The city council promised that 6 they would keep fares low, and so far it has.
Riders took to the line at once. Painted a deep green, 7 passengers admired the restored streetcars, and within a month the line was carrying more than four thousand riders a day. 8 The cars are 9 nice to ride, quiet and smooth, and the seats face large windows.
Not everyone was sure the project was worth its cost. Supporters argued that the line would ease traffic, attract shoppers, and 10 the reduction of pollution. The city was capable 11 to reduce some bus routes to help pay for it, though officials promised no neighborhood would lose service. The 12 drivers uniforms, navy blue with brass buttons, were a small nod to the line's history.
Of the two proposed routes, the riverfront line was the 13 most direct, and planners chose it partly for that reason. Larkfield now talks of a second line across the river. 14 What was once torn up as old-fashioned has become, to the city's surprise, a picture of where it wants to go. 15
