Niagara River Line (Automated Electric Tram)

[ShonTron]

Much of eastern Niagara Region doesn’t look great, including East St. Catharines, Merriton, Downtown Welland, parts of Thorold, and the east side of Port Colborne. Like much of Niagara Falls, they’ve all been hit hard by economic restructuring since the 1980s. But it’s no different than Brantford or Chatham or Cornwall. The retail moved into malls and then to big boxes and then online. Without a critical mass of local shoppers, downtowns decline, and Niagara Falls downtown was really done as it’s hardly central to the people who live there nor to the tourists.

Mass tourism is seasonal and low-paying compared to unionized manufacturing, which Niagara had a lot of.