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Why streetcars nearly vanished...
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Well there are those who say streetcars didn't die, they were killed off by GM, which went around buying all the street railways it could, and then converting them to GM buses: <br />http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm <br /> <br />And there are those who say otherwise: <br /> <br />http://www.1134.org/stan/ul/GM-et-al.html <br /> <br />Streetcars were a money-losing propsition from the get go. In the early 20th Century streetcar lines were usually built by real estate developers to increase property value in new subdivisions, by making it easy for suburban homeowners to commute to their downtown jobs. Once all the homes were sold, the money-losing streetcar system became a publicly-owned system. <br /> <br />An example of this is the Key System in the East Bay, that was developed by Francis Marion "Borax" Smith. His streetcar system served property developed throughout the East Bay by Frank Havens' Realty Syndicate. But by the 1950's the Key System was bust, and a bond issue created the AC Transit bus system that replaced it. <br /> <br />I don't think it was a conspiracy to get rid of the streetcar per se. In the 1950's the streetcar subdivisions that had been developed in the early 1900's were fully mature. It made more sense to serve the outer ring of subdivisions with buses rather than make a large investment in heavy rail, particularly at a time when freeway development was in its heyday. <br />
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