[Matthew]

According to news reports, the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership is finalizing work on a downtown streetcar corridor from PTRP Downtown Research Park to Bowman Gray University Medical Center. The big news in this report is a line extension. The line will now connect to Winston-Salem State University and historic Union Station. I still don't know if it will connect to the city's well-known $210 million ballpark project. The plans presented last year show this line about two blocks from the ballpark. According to the reports, DWSP would like to have streetcars in place before the East-West Expressway is closed for upgrades, about five years from now, and before the project to replace bridges downtown with creative designed bridges begins. DWSP feels this rail system is important to move people through downtown during the expressway and bridge closures. So we now know city leaders would like to complete the first line of the streetcar system by 2015.