8 San Diego Uptown News | December 10–23, 2010 FROM PAGE 1 TROLLEY


very different individuals, both surpris- ingly have the same dream: To bring authentic antique trolleys to the streets of San Diego. They just disagree on how, when and where to do it. “Running a vintage trolley here


in San Diego is not a new idea,” said Mathis, chairman of the Metropoli- tan Transit System (MTS), during a recent interview about his “Restor- ing the Magic” trolley project con- cept. “It’s an idea that actually came about during the ’80s, but business owners downtown didn’t want the construction to impede the roads.” Taking past factors and concerns


into consideration, Mathis rallied MTS board members’ support in order to purchase three President’s Conference Committee (PCC) trol- leys or streetcars in 2006, with a grant from Centre City Develop- ment Corporation, as well as corpo- rate donations from The Coca-Cola Company and several others. “We’re now at the point where


we’re ready to get them on the downtown loop, probably by spring in 2011,” Mathis said. The cars were transported from


a junkyard in Lake Tahoe, Calif. to the MTS yard in downtown San Di- ego where they are being restored with volunteer support from the San Diego Electric Railway Associa- tion and Carlos Guzman, Inc. A self-professed train aficionado,


Mathis said he was inspired to use PCC cars in San Diego as they re- minded him of his childhood in San Francisco where he used to ride original PCC cars down F Street. Mathis’ modern-day trolley proj- ect—which he said is fine tuned to the wants of local downtown busi- ness—will use the MTS infrastruc- ture that’s already in place. But the trolleys will only be serving the downtown area, making a loop from Imperial and 12th avenues through C Street —for now. In terms of connecting the


streetcar project from downtown to Uptown, Mathis said he just re- ceived a grant from Caltrans to do a feasibility study which would look at what he called, “phase two” of the project, whereupon he would pro- pose that the trolleys head up Park


California Exposition of 1915, back onto their original tracks and routes they traveled from 1915 through the 1930s. Chaffee would then like to have them presented at Balboa Park’s centennial celebra- tion in 2015. The main routes would connect North Park, University Heights and Hillcrest with down- town, the zoo and Balboa Park. “Once these trolleys are running


on any part of the original route, they meet the last criteria for national historic designation which would provide federal and state recogni- tion. That will open up special federal money set aside for historic transpor- tation systems,” Chaffee said. Balboa Park was made a na-


tional historic site in 1977 and the trolleys are already San Diego His- toric Landmarks No. 339, Chaffee said. He continued and said that if his trolley project were to come to fruition, that would make every district around Balboa Park where these trolleys traveled historic dis- tricts: Everywhere from Uptown to Hillcrest, South Park, Golden Hills and Little Italy. “San Diego can have a national historic streetcar system, and it


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laboration at this point would be premature. “Right now we don’t share the


same goal. Our goal is to start a pi- lot project downtown, called ‘phase one,’ and ‘phase two’ is to go up to the zoo, and so we’re working on a different regime than those folks,” Mathis said. “But ultimately, anything that’s


run up to the other communities will be an MTS operation—unless it can be funded by the community and I think they realize they don’t have the funds to do it.” Mathis established


the San Diego Vintage Trolley Association in 2005 with the blessing of the MTS Board. He was advised to create a nonprofit to fund his goal of purchasing the PCC streetcars. “This is really an


Shown above, one of the PCC cars makes its way to San Diego in 2006 from Lake Tahoe, Calif. (Courtesy San Diego Vintage Trolley)


Boulevard from San Diego City College, bringing passengers to the San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park. “In my mind, the project would


be extended to include North Park as well,” Mathis said. As for when that would be, Mathis said it could take years. Enter Christian Chaffee, an an-


tiques dealer from San Diego who wants to do just that—in less than four years. His goal is to bring the original San Diego streetcars, which were commissioned by John D. Spreckels for the Panama


would be equal in a sense to San Francisco’s iconic nationally desig- nated cable car system,” he said. Chaffee’s grand idea was born


serendipitously in 1996 while visit- ing an Adam’s Avenue street fair. There he learned that there were three original San Diego Exposition trolleys sitting in an area junkyard in dire need of restoration. It would seem then that Chaffee


and Mathis have a lot in common, but when asked why MTS doesn’t join forces with Chaffee, Mathis said it’s not a priority and that col-


MTS project, as San Diego Vintage Trolley Association is a wholly- owned subsidiary of MTS. We did it that way, because, first of all, I needed a vehicle


I could use to collect donations, so we established it (SDVTA) as a nonprofit. And the project has to be connected to MTS because we’re running on the MTS system. The operators of the streetcars will be MTS operators,” Mathis said. “We’re serving several interests


here, certainly tourists and local hotel interests, and we’re serving the needs of business and residents down there as well.” Chaffee said that his project is


losing steam due to several issues involved with the PCC trolley.


“PCC’s are low-cost streetcars.


They were designed during the De- pression for all-weather climates and the cold—not San Diego,” Chaffee said. “I don’t understand why MTS has plans of running these foreign, non-native PCC vehicles versus orig- inal San Diego streetcars.” Chaffee, with his historic trol-


leys in tow, has been making a con- certed effort to get the communi- ties of North Park and Hillcrest and even Normal Heights on board. One of his restored trolleys has been making appearances all over Uptown, from the Toyland Parade to the Hillcrest Farmers Market. “I think that people need to get


involved in their community asso- ciations and let people know they want San Diego historic streetcars,” Chaffee said. “There are private interests that


do not want this project to hap- pen, especially in Uptown. Why? Because they have the Convention Center, the ballpark, the water- front, and they have a very ineffi- cient transportation system to get people out of downtown—on pur- pose. They do not want people to leave downtown, especially to go to Uptown. They do not want to share the business from downtown with Hillcrest, North Park, etcetera.” Although Uptown area commu-


nities are slowly becoming more and more interested in Chaffee’s trolleys and his ideas, the funding hasn’t materialized. Benjamin Nicholls, executive


director for the Hillcrest Business Improvement Association (BIA), said that he understands that many people involved are caught up in historic significance of one trolley


see Trolley, page 31 Business Improvement Association


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