Streetcars in North America Streetcars in North America Electric streetcars or trolley(car)s (North American English for the European word "tram") were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation. Older surviving lines and systems in Boston, Cleveland, Mexico City, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco were often infrastructure-heavy systems with tunnels, dedicated right-of-way, and long travel
Transportation in North America and on Vancouver Island. The state government of Alaska also operates the Alaska Railroad, which currently does not connect to the North American network. In Canada, rail lines from Labrador City, NL to Sept-Îles, Quebec also currently are not linked to the North American network. There have been proposals in recent years to link the island of Newfoundland to the mainland of North America via a 17 km-long rail tunnel under the Strait of Belle Isle, which would also carry automobile traffic on flatcars, similar to the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. This has stalled due to