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 n
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 doo
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?
“Did a conspiracy really kill the streetcar? - It wasn’t National City Lines that did it”
by Diers, John
from Trains, January 2006, p. 56
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:
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.
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.
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.