Jay Lund, Spokesperson for Modern Streetcar Advocates, says the biggest benefit of a fixed rail system is economic development.
The Modern Streetcar Advocates want to educate people about the potential streetcar project to help them decide for themselves whether they support it, based on the facts.
Lund says the group hopes to build a coalition of support through this process.
The streetcar would link downtown with midtown and would include stops at TD Ameritrade Park and the Century Link Center.
Lund says the city has been studying the idea of a streetcar for over a decade but he says this is the closest the city has ever been to making this a reality.
He says with the creation of the advocacy group, the hope is that there will be more of a fact-based debate about the importance of this project.
"The City of Omaha, in conjunction with its consultants and other partners, are now completing an advanced conceptual design study which we anticipate will come out at some point in the next month or so. At that point they will have the costs nailed down and we’ll start to talk about different funding mechanisms for the project.”
More information is available at ModernStreetcarAdvocates.org.