VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) - The Vancouver City Council will cross the Columbia next week to check out Portland's streetcar system.

The visit coincides with the council hearing about bringing some type of mass transit -- light rail or rapid bus transit -- over the Columbia River and through Portland's downtown. Vancouver's transportation director Thayer Rorabaugh says a streetcar system could compliment mass transit in Vancouver.

Portland reinstated a streetcar system in 2000 more than 40 years after it tore out its old one. Transportation specialists consider it a model system, and representatives from dozens of cities across the country--and some from abroad--have come to Portland to check it out.

Streetcars are making a gradual comeback in American cities.