7 ms·

One thing that the article doesn't mention but was still an important factor in the streetcars' demise: the need to replace the capital stock. Things like track

• busterarm 10y ago
  I prefer the theory that (I think) was proposed in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Streetcars were too fun, so they had to go.
• flexie 10y ago
  Today you have streetcars ("trams") in more than 200 European cities and they have also needed replacements and been upgraded from time to time. So why did streetcars thrive in most of Europe, but barely survived in America? We had depressions and world wars in Europe too.
  • Agustus 10y ago
    Space and gas taxes. Europeans do not have significant amounts of space to build housing supplies, that's why space/m^2 is much higher than here in the states, witness San Fancisco's trolley system that caused suburbanization (or at least enabled it). Gas Taxes in Europe are double than here in the states[1], US gas is taxed at relatively low rates when compared to other nations. Used as a user tax here in the states, its predominant purpose is to fund roadway improvements and maintenance; however, it is used to fund transit and other items. In Europe, the higher gas tax is used to drive (good one Agustus) less travel and subsidize rail lines. The trams / streetcars in Europe work because the suburbanization was stopped by high government taxes and forces the populous to pay more for a lower comparable standard of living. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuel_tax_in_OECD_countries,_2010..png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuel_tax_in_OECD_countrie... *Edited for why, if you disagree, please provide an alternative opinion. I have taken the time to provide a discourse, if a downvote to it is necessary, then please provide a reason.
    • Gmo 10y ago
      I did not downvote you but I found your post was reasonable (although I don't completely agree with it) until your last sentence and the "lower comparable standard of living". My guess is where the downvoting come from :)
    • Retric 10y ago
      Suburbanization was heavily subsidized in the US for a variety of political reasons. That just happened to line politically connected peoples pockets. It's actually terrible from an economic standpoint. The US also focuses on extremely local school funding which promotes heavy economic segregation and is extremely harmful for the overall economy. PS: Early on post WWII it was assumed to be a good defense from the at the time low yield nuclear weapons. But, this is hard to trace back and might not have had significant impact.
  • f_allwein 10y ago
    It wasn't that straightforward in Europe either. E.g. in Munich, the tram network was reduced until the 1990s as it was thought underground trains could replace it. That turned out to be insufficient, so now we have both. But yes, it involves significant public spending.
  • Theodores 10y ago
    Well, parent could be correct. Just yesterday there was a post on here about London's bus numbers, those had been inherited from the horse and cart days, been used on horse drawn trams, been used on electric trams, been used on trolleybuses (trams with little rubber wheels instead of proper steel ones) and now used on regular bus routes. Seems that London upgraded transport stock to get rid of trams without there being some huge conspiracy. A plausible scenario could happen elsewhere.
    • aninhumer 10y ago
      >trolleybuses (trams with little rubber wheels instead of proper steel ones) This seems like a peculiar way to describe them? A trolleybus is just a bus with normal rubber tires, that's powered electrically by a caternary.
    • Symbiote 10y ago
      In case you've never used one, a trolleybus is actually much closer to a normal bus, but runs from overhead electric wires. They're still used in some cities in China and eastern Europe. They're quiet, have flexible routes, and zero pollution in the City, and are lightweight.
      • dalke 10y ago
        And San Francisco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_San_Francisco says there are 5 such systems in the US, and that SF's is the second largest in the Western Hemisphere, after Mexico City's.
  • busterarm 10y ago
    Streetcar companies in the US almost universally were under regulation where they were legally required to have a fare that could not support the maintenance of the system.
  • anexprogrammer 10y ago
    Trams completely died out in the UK through the 60s. Just one town, Blackpool, kept them. This was around the time Beeching was making devastating cuts to the UK rail network. The belief seemed to be that cars would be the answer to everything making rail and trams go the same way as canals. Until only a few years ago the trams in Blackpool were running on rolling stock mainly from the 30s and 40s, with just a few bus-bodies from the 90s. They ended up being a living museum and they even bought up old trams from other regions. A few years ago they rebuilt the entire network with new modern stock and track, with new disabled friendly stops. It's sort-of a success. They halved the number of stops (due to needing platforms for disabled access), so it's less convenient. They increased the prices, making it more expensive than the bus following the same route. Many other UK cities have brought back modern tram networks, with mostly great success. It's often proved horribly expensive to do - Edinburgh being the example of how not to buy a tramway. The UK is also bringing back some of the axed rail networks as roads become increasingly gridlocked. Of course this is expensive to do, especially as sections of many lines have now been built on. Other parts of Europe, though not all, seem to make consistently more intelligent transport choices, and have long provided more integrated transport solutions.
  • crzwdjk 10y ago
    That has more to do with what happened after the war: America was doing quite well and had piles of money to spend on roads and cars and suburban houses, while most of Europe was pretty devastated and had to spend everything just on rebuilding, without much left over for things like cars and highways, and so focused their investments on public transport. Even so, a huge number of European cities did end up abandoning their streetcar systems, either because the city was small enough that buses were deemed adequate or because it was big enough to have a metro system. The other big exception to the general trend was the Communist countries where public transport was encouraged over private automobiles for a range of reasons. But even in many of the ex-USSR countries, there has been a similar trend of streetcar infrastructure wearing out and getting abandoned rather than replaced.
    • anexprogrammer 10y ago
      UK was a financial wreck at the end of the war, yet still fully committed to internal combustion. We did irreparable damage to the rail network, abolished all tram networks except one, and built huge car-centered networks (spaghetti junction in Birmingham being the most people unfriendly example I know of, especially the residential streets in the shadow of the raised roadways). All it took was a look across the sea to the Netherlands we'd see integrated bus/rail/tram terminals and some degree of planning and intelligence still being applied to transport. We got to sit breathing traffic fumes. That makes me think it was more about politics and policies than money.
    • andys627 10y ago
      Do you have some good sources off the top of your head for this stuff? Thanks.
  • gumby 10y ago
    The primary answer is buried in the article, in passing: "And when even 10% of Los Angeles’ population got behind the wheel, their presence so slowed the streetcars, which lacked their own lanes, that they could no longer make their schedules, and their level of service declined overall." European streetcars typically have separated lanes and loading areas and thus don't mix with automobile traffic. That way they aren't in conflict. When roads had largely low speed and uncontrolled use, streetcars worked fine because people were used to and able to stay out of each others' way. The automobile was dramatically faster and more dangerous, and the laws and infrastructure were gradually adapted to it (e.g. traffic signals, left hand turn rules etc). Streetcars in the US, and I suspect in other places where they have failed, had to intermix with automobiles, which lead them into a deadly spiral. The other factors mentioned in the article (reluctance to spend, reluctance to run a centralized system, regulation, etc etc) applied in Europe too -- we have a survivorship bias when we see the streetcars in Europe. Look at Berlin as a great A/B experiment: in the west the streetcars were torn up while in the east they were retained. I much prefer living in the east (today!! not under communism) because the Straßenbahn is so convenient. My kid took it to school. Some streetcars survive or have been revived in the US -- it's called "light rail" because I suppose "streetcar" is a laden word. They pretty much all have dedicated right of ways, and if not (I'm thinking of parts of San Francisco's MUNI) they have dedicated loading areas and exclusion zones -- except for cable cars :-)
    • aomurphy 10y ago
      Yes, and not only that, American streetcars had often gotten rights to build track from the city in return for responsibility to repair the streets the tracks were on. Which was a fine deal when there was only foot and horse traffic, but put them in an untenable situation when suddenly cars (which cause much more wear and tear on streets then people or horses) became popular.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    Europe also got bombed to pieces, major cities had to be rebuilt anyway, and Eastern Europe didn't have the wealth that post WWII-America did, so trams were more an essential service than a nice-to-have thing. European cities also came into being before the car did, so their layout is often more streetcar friendly: Higher density, no room for six lane highways, etc.
• astrodust 10y ago
  Tracks last anywhere from 30 to 40 years at most and then they need to be replaced. 30 years isn't long for any given line or right of way, but it's near end of life for tracks. In any city with a streetcar system these are constantly being replaced, bit by bit, to keep the system working.
  • jrapdx3 10y ago
    Certainly true here in Portland, OR. The oldest sections of the regional light rail system were constructed ca. 1980. There's a project starting next month to replace the track (along SW 1st Ave) which has caused many delays and considered a major hazard to reliability. Rail/streetcar public transportation is quite popular in the region and well-used, though it doesn't stop auto traffic from being a nightmare with increasing frequency. Edit: spelling.
• ucaetano 10y ago
  Tracks do last forever with normal maintenance and partial replacements. Rails do wear out, and are constantly being realigned and replaced, as well as ties, ballast, signaling etc. But your point about rolling stock is correct. The PCC street car was designed in the 30's to address that, being a mass-produced, modular system. Also, the European streetcar systems went through the same economic hardships (and some much larger ones - the wars), even using the same PCC cars, but still thrive to this day. So it is more about a policy driven by lobbying and intervention from auto manufacturers than purely business model and economics. Robert Moses had a really big hand in this as well...
  • Shivetya 10y ago
    street cars, falling under the light rail category, suffer a similar problem to heavy rail solutions. they are expensive to adapt to changes in usage. if the needs of the people change and the street car wasn't going that way you can't fix it quickly or cheaply.
    • ucaetano 10y ago
      Very true, that's why they can't be a single solution to transit problems. They are good for serving some areas, and work well when mixed with urban rail, suburban rail and buses. Use rail for high-density areas that change only over multiple decades, and buses for low density, mutable areas.
    • phil21 10y ago
      While this is a bug, it's also one of the most unnoticed and unspoken about features. If I'm looking for a house and access to reliable public transit is important to me, I'm going to want to buy in an area well served and expected to be well served 30 years from now as well. Track and train stations mean this is likely to be true. At least far more true than a bus route. In this manner city planners can't pull the social contract rug out from under you as easily.
• rmason 10y ago
  Detroit sold its streetcars in 1956 to Mexico City. Today some of those cars are still being run in various places in South America and in San Francisco!