Aside from the historic places, attractive tourist spots, and luxurious hotels Portland is pride of, another asset the place can offer to visitor that offers a lot of advantage are the Portland Streetcars. It is designed to mix with traffic in the busy streets of Portland and to give ease to the tourists and visitors who want to travel fast within the city limits. It is the preferred passenger vehicle by most of the locals aside from the MAX Light Rail because it also travels around the downtown vicinity of Portland. Currently, it can board up to 12,000 passengers per day but soon believed to be the number one transportation in whole of Portland. There are also certain hotels Portland can offer which are nearer to the sub-stations of this Portland Streetcars.

http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/history.php

Here is a list of the services these Streetcars offer:

- Route-it travels a continuous loop of 8 miles, 4 miles in each direction but soon believe to double its coverage.

- Vehicles-it can carry up to 140 passengers, each car, but are air-conditioned to give comfort to the passengers.

- Frequency-usually you just have to wait for 12 minutes after it has passed.

- Fares-you can only pay $2-2.50 or you can purchase an annual pass $100.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Place

These streetcars are one of the evidences that Portland also cares for the people when it comes to transportation. In fact, there are plans to double the routes of the streetcars which can reach up to the furthest corners of Portland.

http://www.portland.com/pioneer-place.php

http://www.10best.com/Portland,OR/Shopping/Shopping_Centers_&_Districts/89353/Pioneer_Place_Portland_OR/

http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Pioneer.Place.503-228-9294

This is a streetcar system in Portland, Oregon to serve the surrounding downtown areas. It opened in 2001 with a single lane that is about four miles in length serving over twelve thousand passengers daily. The construction for a second line is due to begin soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Streetcar

The Portland streetcar schedule

The streetcar operates from 5:30am to 11:30pm from Monday through Friday; 7:15am to 11:30pm on Saturdays7:15am to 10:30pm on Sundays.

The streetcar runs almost every thirteen minutes on weekdays from 9:30am and 5pm. In the evening and morning, the train runs every 14-20 minutes. On Saturdays, the service runs every 13 minutes between 11 am and 8 pm with the evening and evening service for every 15 to 20 minutes.

You can obtain individual schedules for the Portland streetcar from their website, which is downloadable in PDF format.

http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/schedule.php

For the real time information, you will have to inquire through the telephone using TriMet's transit tracker system.

Hotels in downtown Portland

There are hotels located near the streetcar system with great Portland hotel rates that you could use for your accommodation when visiting or touring Portland.

http://www.monaco-portland.com/