In the 1990s, my city began planning to build an LRT system. After decades of fierce opposition from anti-transit politicians and feral hogs in the suburbs, the city was ultimately forced to settle for a dinky little circulator streetcar instead. [You can read the gruesome details here. ](https://city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/ccCouncil/District-4-Bauman/PDFs/F_F-Summer-2022-The-HOP-article-_Bauman.pdf)

Since the initial segment began operating, every feasible avenue of funding its planned expansion has been blocked by an extraordinarily hostile state legislature. Thus, for the better part of a decade, we’ve been stuck with a 2-mile-long tourist attraction and glorified mobility aid that doesn’t actually serve most of its intended destinations. On top of all that, it also suffers from the typical drawbacks of a streetcar which lacks its own dedicated right-of-way.

Suffice it to say, this streetcar is a frequent subject of derision and ridicule, with the same people who have worked to undermine its potential citing its resultant lack of utility as evidence that it should never have been built. There is now a renewed effort underway to have it dismantled, which seems to be gaining some traction. If this were to happen, our already cash-strapped city would subsequently have to pay back millions of dollars in federal funds that were bookmarked for its continued operation.

I have been involved in some tentative discussions with an advocacy group that wishes to see the streetcar maintained, but to be completely honest, I'm struggling to find much enthusiasm for the cause. On the one hand, I'd hate to see the city faced with the aforementioned financial burden, and I believe that the ultimate failure of this streetcar would vindicate the zealots and set our mass transit back for decades. On the other hand, it has many, many flaws in its present state, and there are other, more pressing issues at hand, such as underfunding and cutbacks to our far more extensive and patronized bus system (to give just one example out of many).

With all of that context out of the way, I suppose the whole purpose of this post was to ask: 

Are these little circulator streetcars worth saving? Are there any examples in which such a system has been improved and upgraded to the extent that it was able mature into useful and viable mass transit? Is it ultimately preferable to let them burn this thing down and hope we can start over with proper LRT somewhere down the line?

Can these Obama-era meme streetcars across the U.S. be saved?