Light rail update 2001.

Twenty-five years ago, several hundred professionals and advocates gathered in Philadelphia for the Transportation Research Board's first Specialty Conference on Light Rail Transit.

Back then, remnants of old trolley systems survived in just nine North American cities: Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New Orleans, San Francisco, Toronto and Mexico City, plus Ft. Worth's one-mile shuttle built in 1962.

Progress since then has sometimes seemed maddeningly slow, but look back now and see what has been accomplished. Surviving systems have been