When Michael Donovan walks around his neighborhood of Hillcrest, he sees the legacy of the streetcar all over. He sees it in the neighborhood’s density and walkability, the mix of residential and commercial buildings and the wide streets that were necessary for streetcars to make turns.
“The San Diego streetcar era really was important in forming the type of communities we have,” Donovan said. “This was a very pedestrianized area, and … the idea now is to try and get back to that.”
Donovan is a co-founder of the grassroots neighborhood group Vibrant Uptown, which has been campaigning to bring the streetcar back to San Diego’s urban core…