There is no reason for the Stamford line to end so early at Bull’s Head. The areas north of Bull’s Head – along High Ridge and Long Ridge roads – are dense with housing, shopping and office parks holding thousands and thousands of jobs. In order to be a success, Stamford’s subway ought to run at least as far north as Merritt Parkway.

Long-term, further lines ought to be built to the West Side and East Side and along Cove Road, all of which are densely populated and have a high population of lower-income transit-dependent residents.

A better idea would be to run the streetcar line down Union Avenue, which turns into State Street, then turn toward the Green on Chapel Street then turn onto Church to head toward Whitney. State Street in this part of town could frankly use a development impetus, as it’s filled mainly with surface parking lots for people going to jury duty downtown. And a line here could potentially expand to the Fair Haven neighborhood.

Hopefully the city has dusted off the plans from it’s old streetcar network, as it was quite large, with one trolley even traveling to Waterbury. A fixed guideway could even be found by getting rid of the parking spaces on one side of the street in most places downtown.

The Stamford Streetcar could do well, but they’ll need some local zoning changes to make the area into a more walkable, vibrant community to see good ridership. But, this drawback is also Stamford’s strength: by incorporating the streetcar line as the cornerstone of a massive economic development push in the city, they can get an effective transit line AND a revitalized, vibrant urban core.

After way too many years of car-centric urban planning in CT, it’s nice to see some diversification and serious thought put into public transit systems.

Joe, the middle of the green may be only 200 ft from Phelps Gate, which is one entrance to Old Campus; on the other hand, most Yale students live much farther away, some a good ten to fifteen minutes away from the Green. Yes, it’s possible to walk to the Green, but if I were to use a streetcar to get from the station, it would likely be at night, and trudging across even half the Green is not inviting. This applies in any direction coming from Union Station. Mind, Yale’s free transit service does a pretty good job of getting you to the station, so perhaps undergrad students are not a primary target.

Shore Line East service terminates at State St, but there are many times more Metro-North passengers than Shore Line passengers. As someone who went to school in New Haven and has traveled to both New York and points east via rail, I’d definitely opt for the streetcar to Union Station (leaving the entire question of its viability aside.)

New Haven as a whole is very dense and walkable and so a streetcar system would do pretty well, even if it has to share colonial era streets with cars. Stamford’s downtown, on the other hand, is downright dangerous for pedestrians and is really a giant office park rather than a true downtown.

Nevertheless, Yale has a huge say in New Haven and so if they want this built, it will be built.