Portland Streetcar is planning to temporarily close five stops in downtown Portland and the Pearl District in an effort to speed up travel.

The trial, expected to begin in February and last at least a month, targets places where frequent stops take a toll on travel time and where collisions tend to block tracks and take trains out of service.

Closing two stops in the Pearl District -- at Northwest 10th and 11th avenues at Everett Street -- is expected to save about 70 seconds of travel time in each direction. In addition to cutting boarding time, it would also make it easier to glide through the stretch without stopping for a red light.

And accident prone stops -- at Southwest 10th Avenue and Stark Street and both directions at Southwest First Avenue and Harrison Street -- would be closed in an effort to avoid out-of-service trains and blockages that gum up the whole system.

"The No. 1 complaint from both riders and non-riders is that it needs to move faster in order to be more useful," said Dan Bower, the executive director of the nonprofit Portland Streetcar Inc.

(In 2013, The Oregonian/OregonLive's Joseph Rose raced the streetcar from OMSI to Powell's City of Books on foot and won with a minute to spare, though that was before the streetcar got a direct route via the Tilikum Crossing.)

The closures would last at least a month, during which Portland Streetcar would collect data on whether service has improved. It would also hold a public hearing on the closures before making them permanent.

Bower presented the plan last month to the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, where he said he heard complaints from neighbors who frequently use the targeted stops.

"There are a lot of people who use those stations, or who live in the neighborhood or travel into the neighborhood," he said. "It's going to be one of those issues that's very local."

The streetcar is also looking at other ways to speed service. The city of Portland is considering whether to buy three Seattle streetcars expected to be sold in 2018 in an effort to reduce time between trains.

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034

@enjus