Fort Lauderdale mulls next streetcar phase

With plans in place for a 1.4-mile initial streetcar operation to begin in 2016, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.'s Downtown Development Authority is weighing plans to add a second phase in a loop pattern.

Cost for both phases of The Wave is put at $142.6 million. But the addition of the second phase, estimated to cost $7.5 million, likely would have to come from local funding sources. Local media report the commission plans to borrow money to pay for the added work and repay the bond using Community Redevelopment Agency money.

Federal and Florida state funding accounts for $103.4 million of the project at present. In July 2013 Fort Lauderdale city commissioners approved a plan for a special tax assessment zone downtown to fund the project.

The second-phase plans have streetcars traveling up Northwest First Avenue to Northeast Fourth Street, going east on Fourth to Northeast Third Avenue, then heading north on Third to the system’s terminus at Sixth Street. The streetcars would then backtrack along the same route heading south.