Most of us have heard the story of how America once had trolley cars, a system of electric street railways that provided cheap and efficient transportation to almost any place a person would want to go. That system, according to the story, was destroyed by a group of businessmen in order to increase their own profits by requiring the American people to buy cars. Up to now I have regarded this as an urban legend. However Stephen B. Goddard in a well researched and footnoted book, Getting There, has shown that it is all too true.
Chapter 7, Derailing the Trolleys, is where Goddard explains it. In the late 19th century most electric street railways were built by companies that produced electricity and needed a place to sell it. As time went on home uses of electricity made their industry more successful. In the 1920's government regulation increasingly encumbered their trolley operations while vehicles with gasoline engines were unregulated and paid minimal taxes. Streetcar systems began to loose money but they continued to operate, subsidized by the lucrative home electricity market and unable to cut back on their routes or increase their fares because of government regulators.
In Minnesota a man who owned a family operated bus company, Roy Fitzgerald, saw an opportunity. He began to use his unregulated buses to compete with streetcars offering lower fares. His success came to the attention of General Motors. GM had expanded it automobile manufacturing operations and was also building buses. GM, Firestone, Standard Oil of California, Mack and Phillips Petroleum organized to loan money to new bus lines such as National City Lines, American City Lines and others all organized by Fitzgerald. Of course the new bus companies had to purchase buses and supplies from the companies that provided the cash to buy out the trolley lines. The money was not to be made in operating public transit; it was to be made in selling buses, tires and the petroleum products needed to operate the system. However, their success was limited because many electric companies were reluctant to sell their streetcar operations. Then, in 1935, the Rayburn-Wheeler Act was passed which forced the electric companies to divest themselves of electric street railways. Fitzgerald, with the backing of the above companies, was able a great many trolley lines. The trolley cars were scrapped and replaced with buses. All of this was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act for for whatever reason the government ignored that until the late 1940's when it filed and won a law suit against the companies that had destroyed the trolley lines. They were convicted of "concocting and implementing a criminal conspiracy" but got off with very light fines.
Meanwhile the bus companies, when they began losing money, were sold to the municipalities they served. And the public got to pay for buses which last at most 20 years while streetcars last for much longer periods of time. For example, New Orleans still uses Perly Thomas cars which were build in the middle 1920's and have been operated continuously since they were purchased. And the streetcars cost less to operate.
Here in the US we like to think the success of the automobile is based solely on its popularity with the public. However, while the automobile is popular, it was also pushed on us by a large automobile manufactures and its co-conspirators. And we are all poorer because of it.
To us older guys this is not news...we've read of the trials of the late 40's and 50's where GM, AMACO, and the tire companies were in court defending their monopolistic actions. But the result of their actions were too imbued on the populace to turn around and go back.
But today, I think there is a rethinking of the problem and the process as more and more new light rail and commuter lines emerge. Environmental problems, land availability and use, the preciousness of fuel sources and its rising costs, traffic jams, and people getting tired of driving and stopping and driving and driving more and more because home is often removed so much from their place of work: these are all reasons why I feel that public transportation is facing not so much a rebirth as a reconstruction and renaissance.
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What goes around, comes around - the more things change the more they stay the same.
Read history and you will find that everything that is taking place today, has taken place in the past - only the names and the technologies have changed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I sure hope you are right, Henry, and we are seeing a rebirth of public transit. I am lucky enough to live in a state with a relatively good transit system and I have been using it for many years. New Jersey Transit has done some very good things, especially with our rail transit. However, our bus system is treated like a step child, ignoring new development which simply goes without any transit at all. For example, Mercer Hospital (which used to be in Trenton) was served by a bus every half hour from 5 am to midnight. Recently it was moved to a suburban location in Hopewell Township. Now it has no transit at all. So I remain somewhat skeptical.
PS. I live between Newark and Paterson so what I see is not typical. I think you live in or near Binghamton. What kind of transit is out your way?
Actually, Balt, I do read history more than I read anything else. Most of my reading about trains is history as well as biography. Recently I read Maury Klein's The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman. I agree with you that human nature has not changed but technology has changed. A lot.
PS. When, in the Bible, Esau sold his birth right he at least got a "mess of pottage" (bowl of red lentil stew) in return. The men who stole our streetcar systems didn't even give us that.
Like Henry6 I am old enough to remember the elaborate street car and inter-urban system in the Detroit area that lasted till about 1950.
There is no doubt in my mind that the automobile and other self propelled transportation killed them off. When cars became common and affordable and roads began to develop people wanted to move out of the crowded cities into what then was "the woods" and is now suburbia.There was not enough population in those areas to support public transportation so streetcar companies did not follow them.
Some of the major American cities are seeing a resurgence in light rail; and rightly so. It can alleviate those eternal and boring drives home from work. Good public transit may again become a reality in the future.
Norm
The problem is "good" public transportation. An awful lot of the transportation planners and transit operators are a joke (no concept of what they are doing. Bus people in charge of light rail creates some massive FAILs.
Perhaps the biggest problem with streetcar systems was their physical inflexibility.
While a bus line can easily alter a route to accomodate a new apartment complex or other such facility, a trolley is married to its tracks.
Another problem was the growth of the suburbs into centers of commerce all of their own. A spoke-and-hub streetcar system handled folks travelling from the 'burbs into the central city just fine. But when it came to travelling to the town next door, or several 'burbs over, they were that much less practical, requiring a trip downtown and a transfer to another line out of the city. Driving direct was much easier.
Still, it's interesting to consider what might have been had PE and all the other systems continued to exist.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Norm,
Certainly there is no doubt as as automobiles became more popular the demand for public transit waned. But I must disagree that public demand for cars led to the demise of street cars.
After all, while public transit did decline it never went away entirely and it still operates. When it became unprofitable government entities took it over. But without GM and the rest of the conspirators government might have taken over trolley systems with usable and long lived cars that cost must less to operate than buses. Instead it had to take over bus systems where buses are replaced every 12 years, cost more to operate and cause pollution as they travel along.
I'm not personally familiar with transit in Detroit. I do know that some cities did choose to keep their street cars. For example, Washington DC had street cars until the subway was built. Philadelphia still has them. Yet both of those cities have a lot of cars too.
John
Chicken,
The problem that I see in my state is that, while we have an over all good system, many areas--especially new ones--have no transit at all of any kind.
tree68 Perhaps the biggest problem with streetcar systems was their physical inflexibility. While a bus line can easily alter a route to accomodate a new apartment complex or other such facility, a trolley is married to its tracks. Another problem was the growth of the suburbs into centers of commerce all of their own. A spoke-and-hub streetcar system handled folks travelling from the 'burbs into the central city just fine. But when it came to travelling to the town next door, or several 'burbs over, they were that much less practical, requiring a trip downtown and a transfer to another line out of the city. Driving direct was much easier. Still, it's interesting to consider what might have been had PE and all the other systems continued to exist.
We are a very manipulative and manipulated society. A straight line inflexible streetcar line could have been designed, marketed and sold to the public. Look what all we have accepted by the marketers: Jello, Vanna White, the NFL, Rock and Roll, Pat Boone, Madonna, a two party political system, Big Macs, bigger anything is better except for wireless communication's hardware, the freedom you have owning and driving your own cars(s), the internet, wrestling as a sport, 1000 channel tv reception. So if we've accepted any or all of those things, and the many other things we use and buy everyday, then a logical, safe, reliable, environmentally friendly, inexpensive transportation system is within the range of our believing and buying.
Trees,
You make two interesting points. It is true that streetcar tracks are inflexible and cannot easily be changed. However, this also has certain advantages. If the apartment complex builders, for example, consider where the street car runs when they build their complex they can be reasonable sure that the route will not suddenly be changed and leave them in the cold as can happen with bus routes. That actually happened to me. I had a condition that required me to see my doctor every month. A bus route ran right by her office; it was great. But after a few months and with only 10 days notice and no opportunity for public input the route was suddenly changed. Now I had to take a different bus and had to walk more than a half hour after I got off of it. Other people also used the stop by by doctor's office; I don't know what happened to them.
As far as new centers of growth, certainly buses have their place in any transit system. What I believe in and advocate for is transportation diversity. Transportation is not a one size fits all situation. I agree with you that there are places where private vehicles do make sense and are the only thing that makes sense. But I think it is fair to point our that large parts of our suburbs have been built for cars only with no consideration given to public transit. Today we are living longer and most of us want to stay in our homes. So what happens when we are quite able to keep up with our homes but can no longer drive and there is no public transit. Do we go to a nursing home just because we cannot drive our cars?
henry6 Look what all we have accepted by the marketers: Jello, Vanna White, the NFL, Rock and Roll, Pat Boone, Madonna, a two party political system, Big Macs, bigger anything is better except for wireless communication's hardware, the freedom you have owning and driving your own cars(s), the internet, wrestling as a sport, 1000 channel tv reception.
Look what all we have accepted by the marketers: Jello, Vanna White, the NFL, Rock and Roll, Pat Boone, Madonna, a two party political system, Big Macs, bigger anything is better except for wireless communication's hardware, the freedom you have owning and driving your own cars(s), the internet, wrestling as a sport, 1000 channel tv reception.
For a contrary view, see this article:
It might also be informative to review the articles by Prof. of Economics George W. Hilton.
Also, it's pretty well settled that many streetcar lines were built by land developers to facilitate access to - and hence to increase the value and selling price of - their new neighborhoods, suburbs, towns, and even amusement parks, etc. further out. In economic terms, that is called "exploitation of the land", and is not a negative connotation. As such, though, the streetcar lines were intended to be mere transportation tools to achieve a greater end, not as a 'profit-making center' of their own.
For example, see this recent (Nov. 23, 2012) feature - "Prospering Public Transportation" - from "Living on Earth", a Public Radio International program styled as an environmental newsmagazine:
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00047&segmentID=3
A pertinent excerpt from "Christopher Leinberger, a George Washington University transportation researcher" (emphasis added - PDN):
"LEINBERGER: Transportation, whether it be roads or rail transit, or bike lanes, have always been subsidized. . . .
And I’m suggesting, and Locus is suggesting, and a lot of developers are suggesting that we need to learn from how we used to build our transit systems 100 years ago. This country 100 years ago had the finest rail transit system on the planet. And the vast majority of it was paid for by real estate developers, and it’s not as if the economics were different then than now – those rail transit systems, those trollies, those subways in New York, lost money. So why did developers build them?
They built them to get their customers out to their land, so land profits subsidized the transit, and that’s what we’re proposing with value capture as well. Value capture is capturing the value that’s created by transportation improvements. And it’s not as if you can just assume that developers are just going to pay for it all, that’s not going to happen."
- Paul North.
Paul_D_North_Jr It might also be informative to review the articles by Prof. of Economics George W. Hilton. Also, it's pretty well settled that many streetcar lines were built by land developers to facilitate access to - and hence to increase the value and selling price of - their new neighborhoods, suburbs, towns, and even amusement parks, etc. further out. In economic terms, that is called "exploitation of the land", and is not a negative connotation. As such, though, the streetcar lines were intended to be mere transportation tools to achieve a greater end, not as a 'profit-making center' of their own. "LEINBERGER: Transportation, whether it be roads or rail transit, or bike lanes, have always been subsidized. . . . And I’m suggesting, and Locus is suggesting, and a lot of developers are suggesting that we need to learn from how we used to build our transit systems 100 years ago. This country 100 years ago had the finest rail transit system on the planet. And the vast majority of it was paid for by real estate developers, and it’s not as if the economics were different then than now – those rail transit systems, those trollies, those subways in New York, lost money. So why did developers build them? They built them to get their customers out to their land, so land profits subsidized the transit, and that’s what we’re proposing with value capture as well. Value capture is capturing the value that’s created by transportation improvements. And it’s not as if you can just assume that developers are just going to pay for it all, that’s not going to happen." - Paul North.
I think that economics were much different then from what they are now. Now, transit is truly subsidized as public sector entity. It seems like George Hilton and Christopher Leinberger are dancing on the head of a pin to reach a torturous conclusion that the trollies and interubans of a 100 years ago lost money and were subsidized because they were not a profit making center of their own, but rather, were a necessary component of a profit making venture.
If they were a necessary component of a profit making venture, then they too were a profit making part of that venture. It is really a stretch to conclude that the profit of the profit center subsidized the non-profit nature of the transit system that was essential to make the profit making center work.
To say that land profits subsidized the transit may be true in a sense of accounting for a particular business venture, but it is not analogous to the public sector subsidizing transit.
Washington, DC lost its streetcars in the early 1960's well before the first Metro line was opened.
Bucyrus If they were a necessary component of a profit making venture, then they too were a profit making part of that venture. It is really a stretch to conclude that the profit of the profit center subsidized the non-profit nature of the transit system that was essential to make the profit making center work. To say that land profits subsidized the transit may be true in a sense of accounting for a particular business venture, but it is not analogous to the public sector subsidizing transit.
Once the profits were made from the land developement, the dervelopers moved on. The street car lines were cut loose to survive on there own, which they could not do without subsidies. They could not pay their way from the farebox. Many did not survive more than a year or two after the last lot was sold.
Roads were improved due to public demand , autos were improved and became less expensive (thankyou Henry). The auto came to provide more convienent, faster, and affordable transportation to more and more people.
There is an interesting article "Did a Conspiracy Really Kill the Streetcar?" in Jan 2006 Trains Magazine.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Facts don't make a dent in a conspiracy theory. People love such theories so.
Why is it so hard for people to accept the fact that busses were superior to streetcars for urban tansit systems? Busses required no special infrastructure, could pull over to the curb when loading/unloading (a real big deal), and were much more flexible. They incurred much lower fixed costs than streetcars.
Of course, if the dang government would have stayed out of it in 1935 things might have played out differently. But come on, virtually every city in the US didn't go over to busses due to a conspiracy. The busses were just a better vehicle for their transit systems.
Have fun with your conspiracy theory. I'll stick with reality.
In 1915 an attempt was made at establishing an interurban rail transit system between Woodstock ON and Ingersoll ON with stops long the way...that one did not last past 1918. OOPS.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
The alleged conspiracy loses its credibility when you consider that the conversion from streetcar to bus involved a lot more systems than the operations taken over by National City Lines. The Chicago Transit Authority began receiving an order of 600 PCC cars placed by Chicago Surface Lines just as the population began to move to the suburbs and ridership plummeted. CTA was lucky and was able to trade in the streetcars for PCC rapid transit equipment. Other operators saw the handwriting on the wall and did not purchase streetcars that they wouldn't need.
When looking at the issue of streetcar conversion to buses it is also important to note that in urban areas that kept such systems inevitably the transit operation became part of a public agency rather than staying a private company(as did Most Munical bus systems later on). It seems hard to make the case that private ownership of such operations by a for profit company and the electric utilities that historically were major owner/operators of electric rail transit systems would have eventually wanted to divest themselves of these and focus on their core activities.
So basically I'm contending that without the alleged conspiracy the streetcars would have disappeared anyway,in most locales.....
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Paul_D_North_Jr A pertinent excerpt from "Christopher Leinberger, a George Washington University transportation researcher" (emphasis added - PDN): "LEINBERGER: Transportation, whether it be roads or rail transit, or bike lanes, have always been subsidized. . . . And I’m suggesting, and Locus is suggesting, and a lot of developers are suggesting that we need to learn from how we used to build our transit systems 100 years ago. This country 100 years ago had the finest rail transit system on the planet. And the vast majority of it was paid for by real estate developers, and it’s not as if the economics were different then than now – those rail transit systems, those trollies, those subways in New York, lost money. So why did developers build them? They built them to get their customers out to their land, so land profits subsidized the transit, and that’s what we’re proposing with value capture as well. Value capture is capturing the value that’s created by transportation improvements. And it’s not as if you can just assume that developers are just going to pay for it all, that’s not going to happen."
This is exactly the point! In the auto age, the land developers got smart....They got the government to build roads out to where they had tilled the soil, ready to build suburban housing.
Nothing's really changed. A while back, the charge for a suburban commuter line in Atlanta was being led by a RE developer whose project were smack in the middle of the route. How noble of him!
Many transit projects get pitched as redevelopment projects. The Atlanta Streetcar and Beltline are good examples. The benefits come from the revitalization of the land around the route more than for the transportation they provide, pollution they mitigate or congestion they relieve.
If you draw the control volume for these projects around all of that, you wind up with a net "win". If you draw it just around the transportation function of the transit line, you get "lose." That's why the right and left get so sideways with each other over these projects. They are taking different points of view as their starting point.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
CSSHEGEWISCH The alleged conspiracy loses its credibility when you consider that the conversion from streetcar to bus involved a lot more systems than the operations taken over by National City Lines. The Chicago Transit Authority began receiving an order of 600 PCC cars placed by Chicago Surface Lines just as the population began to move to the suburbs and ridership plummeted. CTA was lucky and was able to trade in the streetcars for PCC rapid transit equipment. Other operators saw the handwriting on the wall and did not purchase streetcars that they wouldn't need.
The failure of rail transit in the cities probably had more to do with construction of highways and the flight to the suburbs than bus conversion. Does anyone really believe people moved out to the suburbs in the 50s because their streetcar line was converted to buses?
BTW, nobody was complaining about moving to the suburbs. It was PROGRESS!
Up here in Canadaland cities are expanding the LRT (bigger-streetcars) they cost piles of money but move a mass of people, Toronto (the centre of the Universe) saw the bus monopoly coming and went south to the U.S. and snapped up piles of relatively new street cars from cities that were abandoning them for buses, they must have got some good deals as they are now expanding their routes, these are streetcars not LRT systems.
In Los Angeles the Pacific Electric was converting some lines to bus even before they completed building their rail system. After taking over the PE, National City Lines actually bought rail equipment to upgrade some lines at the same time they converted other lines to bus. The final bus conversion of the PE inturbans ("Red Cars") and the bus conversion of the cities narrow gauge street car system ("Yellow Cars") was done by the government with popular support from the public.
A side note: It has been postulated that part of the reason the Watts Riots occured is that the service provided by the bus system that replaced the PE interurbans was so poor that many Watts residents lost their jobs due to difficulity getting to work.
oltmannd The failure of rail transit in the cities probably had more to do with construction of highways and the flight to the suburbs than bus conversion. Does anyone really believe people moved out to the suburbs in the 50s because their streetcar line was converted to buses? BTW, nobody was complaining about moving to the suburbs. It was PROGRESS!
Prior to the 50's street car lines were built by suburb developers to promote their developments by providing "good transportation to the city cente"r. After moving to the suburbs many people found that the did not need to go downtown very often and those that did need to go downtown often, found that the automobile served them better.
In San Francisco: Before 1920 there was a parking lot where commuters left their cars and caught the streetcars to downtown. It was located at the intersection of Market Street and Haight Street. It's practically downtown. When I lived on Haight 1/2 block from the lot location, I used to regulary walk through downtown to/from my job at the Transbay Terminal.
CERA Bulletin 145, Transit in the Triangle by Hays and Toman provides a good study on the transition from the street car (and interurban) to busses in and around Pittsburgh. Among factors cited: declining ridership after WWII; street reconstruction of benefit only to the growing number of private automobiles; labor issues at a time of serious inflation; the inflexibility of rail vs. rubber and the growing perception that trolleys were outmoded.
John Timm
I have been really impressed with the Front Runner, TRAX, and the UTA as a whole. They seem to have worked really hard in Utah to do this right the first time, and it seems to be paying off. I have heard that the UTA has done really well with its rail service in a fiscal sense (although I have not seen hard numbers myself). We just moved from Colorado Springs in January of this year, and it is absolutely absurd how difficult it has been to get something started in Colorado. I keep hearing tales of intercity service from Cheyenne to Pueblo and how wonderful it will be. Seems the politicians don't want to play ball. From what I understand, "they" want to build a new mainline around Colorado Springs to route freight traffic around the city, and use the existing ROW for the passenger service.
I was also told a few years back by someone at the trolley museum in Colorado Springs that they have been working with the city to get a streetcar service back in town using the PCC cars that they have been hoarding there. If I recall correctly they want to start with a line from downtown Springs, through Old Colorado City, and on into Manitou Springs. That would catch a lot of tourist traffic supposedly.
The decline in public transport came about for many reasons. Villains were involved, i.e. buying up street railways to destroy them and sell buses to the surviving agency, but most of the change came about because of better technologies and higher living standards.
People moved to the suburbs, especially following WWII, for better housing, schools, etc. And they opted for cars because they are more comfortable, convenient, and flexible. Most importantly, given the dramatic growth of the U.S. economy following the war, more people could afford a car. Then two, then three, etc.!
I rode public transit in New York City, Hartford, Dallas, Melbourne, and Austin. I still ride it. Most of my contemporaries don't. And I can see why. In a car you don't have to sit next to people who shout into a cell phone, or have not had a bath in a week, or spice their sentences with offensive four letter words. You don't have to put up with snarling bus drivers and transit workers for whom customer service is a foreign object.
According to National Transportation Statistics, in 2009 (latest complete data) five per cent of Americans used public transit to get to work. This was up from 4.7 per cent in 2001. However, when adjusted for sampling error (the numbers are derived from statistical samples), there has been no real change in the percentage of Americans going to work on public transit since the 1980s and perhaps back to the 70s.
Through DART in Dallas and the T in Fort Worth, North Texans have invested billions in building the largest light rail and commuter bus system in the southwest. Yet, for all the money that has been spent on public transit, the percentage of people in the Metroplex who use it is less than five per cent. Most people don't want to use it, and they won't until driving becomes unaffordable, i.e. economically, timely, frustratingly, etc.
csmith9474 I have been really impressed with the Front Runner, TRAX, and the UTA as a whole. They seem to have worked really hard in Utah to do this right the first time, and it seems to be paying off. I have heard that the UTA has done really well with its rail service in a fiscal sense (although I have not seen hard numbers myself).
I have been really impressed with the Front Runner, TRAX, and the UTA as a whole. They seem to have worked really hard in Utah to do this right the first time, and it seems to be paying off. I have heard that the UTA has done really well with its rail service in a fiscal sense (although I have not seen hard numbers myself).
A friend of mine who works for a DC area marketing research firm told me she was involved in a project for the state of Utah this summer. They were gaging public opinion on future transportation projects in the state. She said they found little support for Front Runner because "It doesn't go where people want to go." There was much interest in east-west road building. Utah transportation routes are decidedly oriented to north-south. Constrained travel east-west.
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