The Golden Age of the Streetcar

[Fading Fast]

I think the main impact trolley systems had on urban planning was the focus on getting rid of them. The systems that arose in the late 19th Century were integrated into a pre-existing infrastructure as best they could be, and by the second third of the 20th Century that infrastructure itself was going thru considerable upheaval, both due to new development in the 1920s and the improvement of existing roads and the construction of new ones to accomodate cars. Certainly the example of Robert Moses illustrates the dominant urban-planning view of public transport -- street rail systems were an impediment to the vision, not something to be preserved, and these views were further promoted and encouraged by those who had something to gain financially by abolishing the trolleys.

It's interesting to look at the "Futurama" exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, a projection of the "America of 1960," based on the ideas of futurist Norman Bel Geddes strained heavily thru the filter of General Motors. This exhibit envisioned a national highway network -- which eventually came to pass as the Interstate Highway System -- and cities dominated by auto traffic, and no ground-level railways of any kind. The streets in the Bel Geddes/GM vision belonged exclusively to cars, with the roads to be rerouted and laid out in such a way that traffic jams couldn't exist. This was the sort of vision that motivated planners like Moses, who often suckled at the GM teat -- as witness his acceptance of a $25,000 cash bribe, er, contest award from the automaker in 1953 -- and who never missed a chance to promote the GM agenda.

I agree completely with this ⇧ - no counter argument at all. But I would add, Americans - to this day (with, maybe, the exception of the Millennials) - love their cars. To be sure, they might have been "taught" to love them by GM and their ilk, but it is what it is.

I'm a mass transit / city person who wishes that in the '50s we had invested in streetcars/ trollies / interurban / etc. and a national train system as well, but that was not what America seemed to want back then. We seemed to want and got a national highway system and the slow death of trains, etc.

That was the decade that determined the future - trains / trolleys or cars / highways. While I'll denounce Moses and what he did to NYC and the worse things he wanted to do that were, thankfully, stopped, he couldn't have succeeded without some meaningful part of the population behind him / his ideas.

Maybe today they wouldn't be, but at the time, many Americans wanted cars / highways to be the future. And, unfortunately, decisions made in the '50s and '60s put an infrastructure in place that is almost impossible to change. My guess, America would be more open to trains / streetcars / interurbans today, but not at the insane dollars that truly converting that old infrastructure would cost

 

[LizzieMaine]

I agree that for better or worse -- mostly worse, in my view -- decisions made in the postwar decades more than any other shaped the world we live in today. In addition to the overt and specific car-shilling Boys From Marketing You Auto Buy Now marketing push, a lot of the responsibility lies at the feet of the Military-Industrial Complex, whose desire for an Autobahn-like system was largely motivated by Cold War considerations -- and quite likely by the large number of conveniently-ex Nazi advisers then given great credence by the Eisenhower-era military and intelligence organizations. Most people did buy into the arguments, either social or political, and followed the program -- although the urban residents who saw their neighborhoods decimated by Mosesian highway projects were strongly opposed, their voices were given no consideration whatever, largely because they were either the wrong color or the wrong class. Or both.

How much of this came from the Boys, how much of it came from the Generals, and how much of it came from a genuine love of the car and the open road we'll never really know. But the consequences are part of the responsibility that generation -- the "Greatest" Generation -- as a whole, has to bear.

 

[BlueTrain]

The generation that went to Vietnam may not have been the greatest or wanted to go but they went just the same.
Another aspect of the highway building in the 1950s was to shift more freight traffic from trains to trucks, which sometimes did a better job of getting things there faster. One of the net results of that was a wave of railroad mergers after the way.

 

[Haversack]

Before there were streetcar suburbs, (of which there were many in the US), there were railroad suburbs. The Main Line communities outside of Philadelphia along the Pennsylvania RR's main line, and towns on the San Francisco Peninsula such as Burlingame and Atherton are two such examples. In both cases the towns were created specifically as bedroom communities/country house communities for the wealthy of Philadelphia and San Francisco. Similarly the town of Piedmont, (now completely surrounded by the city of Oakland), was laid out to be served by the C-Line of the interurban Key System. Again for the wealthy. These communities, (railroad, interurban, and streetcar), were often created by the privately-owned railroad or traction company as an integral part of their business model. (A case can be made that the Southern Pacific RR was primarily a real estate company that also ran trains.)

 

[Stearmen]

I agree that for better or worse -- mostly worse, in my view -- decisions made in the postwar decades more than any other shaped the world we live in today. In addition to the overt and specific car-shilling Boys From Marketing You Auto Buy Now marketing push, a lot of the responsibility lies at the feet of the Military-Industrial Complex, whose desire for an Autobahn-like system was largely motivated by Cold War considerations -- and quite likely by the large number of conveniently-ex Nazi advisers then given great credence by the Eisenhower-era military and intelligence organizations. Most people did buy into the arguments, either social or political, and followed the program -- although the urban residents who saw their neighborhoods decimated by Mosesian highway projects were strongly opposed, their voices were given no consideration whatever, largely because they were either the wrong color or the wrong class. Or both.

How much of this came from the Boys, how much of it came from the Generals, and how much of it came from a genuine love of the car and the open road we'll never really know. But the consequences are part of the responsibility that generation -- the "Greatest" Generation -- as a whole, has to bear.

I think you are giving the boys way to much credit! As I pointed out, our trolley never made a profit after 1911, and I suspect, it wasn't very profitable before that, hence the mergers. It didn't take the boys from marketing to sell people on the cheap Model T. Before the automobile, it was a real chore to go into town for the farm families! Looking back, America, because of it's wide expanses, was doomed to be a car culture paradise.

 

[vitanola]

Well, large areas of America's older cities were originally street car suburbs. Before the introduction of the horse car, the farthest that a man could comfortably live from his work was just over a mile. In those pre-transit days houses were built right up against each other, for land within commuting distance of work was expensive. Hence the typical 25', 20', and even (in some towns) 16' lots of the 1820's, 1830s and 1840s.

With the coming of the horse car, the range of commute widened to two-and-a-half miles, and lots were commonly
30 feet wide

The electric street car made five, six, or even ten mile commutes a dinstinct possibility . Most housing built in streetcar neighborhoods was built upon 40' lots.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Horse cars were, of course, eventually replaced by electric streetcars- but it wasn't something that happened overnight. A story I heard regarding Chicago City Railway: a number of the horse car drivers didn't immediately jump at the chance to work the electric cars because rules regarding alcohol consumption on duty were a lot more lax for horse car operators. Perhaps the feeling was that a man shivering on an open platform in the dead of winter staring at the rear ends of horses was entitled to imbibe to keep warm. The ends of the horse lines usually had an adjacent saloon where a fella could duck in for a quick one between runs. Verboten when operating an electric or cable car, of course, but with the horse cars it was tolerated.

 

[Fading Fast]

Horse cars were, of course, eventually replaced by electric streetcars- but it wasn't something that happened overnight. A story I heard regarding Chicago City Railway: a number of the horse car drivers didn't immediately jump at the chance to work the electric cars because rules regarding alcohol consumption on duty were a lot more lax for horse car operators. Perhaps the feeling was that a man shivering on an open platform in the dead of winter staring at the rear ends of horses was entitled to imbibe to keep warm. The ends of the horse lines usually had an adjacent saloon where a fella could duck in for a quick one between runs. Verboten when operating an electric or cable car, of course, but with the horse cars it was tolerated.

And to this day the rule proves astute as, every once in awhile, there will be a subway or train accident cause by an inebriated operator.

 

[Steve27752]

Ahh, Trams. The only ones that I have been on is in Melbourne Australia.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Ahh, Trams. The only ones that I have been on is in Melbourne Australia.

That's on the Must See list for our planned Oz trip in a few years. My understanding is that Melbourne has a Dinner Tram where one can enjoy a gourmet meal while riding around the city.

 

[Stearmen]

I have to admit, I to have only ridden one, if the San Francisco cable cars count? That was back in the summer of 69.

 

[BlueTrain]

If nothing else, that was a good time to be in San Francisco.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I recall the electric buses here when I was in grammar school, with their booms connecting to the wires overhead. The local buses at that time, both the electrics and non-electrics (NOPSI buses, they were called, for New Orleans Public Service Inc.), were a cream and dark red with dark blue vinyl seats, opening windows, and no air conditioning. About 1965 the city replaced 'em with silver and green models that had cold A/C.

Streetcars? We have several lines now. There's the famous St. Charles line, of course, which rattles and booms up past my office; and the reinstated Canal Street line, which was discontinued in 1964 and made its return in, I think, 2004. One local businessman made a point of riding the first trip of the new line, as he had done with the last trip of the old line when he was a teenager. And the city, the Regional Transit Authority, I think has completed the line that runs along the edge of the Quarter and along St. Claude Avenue for a short distance.

The streetcars are valuable, I guess, if you live and/or work anywhere along the routes. They're no longer a dime or a quarter, however, and they make you pay for a transfer. Plus it's annoying to drive anywhere along their route. When turning through the median, the "neutral ground" as locals call it, you have to take into account not only pedestrians and other cars, but the streetcar too.

 

[Shangas]

Where I live - Melbourne, Australia - streetcars or trams are still a thing. We boast the biggest network in the southern hemisphere. And I'm very glad that we do! If we didn't, I'd never be able to get anywhere!!

This is our current route-map:

 

[emigran]

As a kid in the '50's I often gleefully rode a a giant trolley in downtown Newark (NJ) together with my Grandmother and Mother on their shopping sprees...

 

[Fading Fast]

As a kid in the '50's I often gleefully rode a a giant trolley in downtown Newark (NJ) together with my Grandmother and Mother on their shopping sprees...

Growing up on the late '60s / '70s after Newark had been all-but destroyed by the riots of the late '60s, I remember my grandmother and father talking about how nice Newark use to be and that it was a place to go to shop when you couldn't - like today - just get everything everywhere. They were always sad to see what had become of Newark. I haven't been back in NJ (other than to Jersey City and riding Amtrak through it from NYC to DC) in +/- 20 years, but have read during that time about periodic attempts to revive Newark - have they had any luck?

 

[MisterCairo]

TTC (Toronto Transit Corporation) PCC car. I remember these as a kid, they were in service between the 1930s and early 1980s when they were replaced by what I knew as the "new" Red Rockets, below.

In Toronto, they're known as Streetcars.

 

[MisterCairo]

The "new" now 35-year old Red Rocket, now being replaced (slowly, expensively and controversially):

 

[MisterCairo]

The brand-new Bombardier streetcars, now multi-car mini trains really. I think the smallest collection is three cars.

They are delayed, over budget and fraught with issues. The city almost cancelled the project, but the courts were involved:

 

[MisterCairo]

In Britspeak a Trolley is a bus that's powered by overhead electric cables that the bus connects to by way of a pair of long stick like objects known as Booms.

My brother drove for the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR to this day, though entirely buses now - the trams were removed by 1951, and replaced with trolley buses, which have been gone since the mid 90s) for 38 years.

He drove these for several, including articulated ones: