Why did America abandon/never develop mass transit systems and street railways? Automobile competition...

Why did America abandon/never develop mass transit systems and street railways? Automobile competition? Demographic shifts? Fears of socialism? Public apathy?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_rapid_transit_systems_by_ridership
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_States
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Bump pls respond

White people own cars and live in the burbs.

>Why did America abandon/never develop mass transit systems and street railways?

An actually functional and well maintained public transportation system is a luxury that can be afforded by Europeans, but not Americans due to the size of the US in general, as well as competing interests and needs in such a big and populous nation. China doesn't have one, India doesn't have one, the more people spread out over a large area, the harder it is to have public transport

Most of the major US cities do have mass transit systems.

>PRC
>India

It did and does, your question is uselessly ignorant and idiotic.

I read somewhere it had to do with automobile competition
I suggest asking at askhistorians for a better answer (yes)

>China doesn't have one, India doesn't have one,

USA really looking up to the big boys

>I suggest asking at askhistorians for a better answer (yes)

Lol.

Now get the fuck off my board.

It actually happened during the great depression. There was some weird law passed that outlawed trolley companies from owning their own power generators. Once trolley companies had to buy their power from the utilities it was too cost ineffective to run the trolleys.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935

>There was some weird law passed that outlawed trolley companies from owning their own power generators.

There's a lot more to it than that. "Power trusts" and monopolized power networks were a thing that progressives were railing against since the early twentieth century. Street railways were just collateral damage in the attempt to take down electric holding companies. Also, by the 1930s Pacific Electric (OP pic) was buying its power from unaffiliated companies anyway, so its not like that had a major effect on its operating expenses.

>Doesn't have trollies
What part of America are you guys from?

The not gay part.

The best thing you can get from this board is a semi-informative shitpost.

How will SanFran ever recover?

We did, you dumb shit

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_rapid_transit_systems_by_ridership
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_States
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States

Do some fucking homework before starting a slidethread, dumbass

SAGE

>slidethread

This is Veeky Forums, what the fuck threads would even be slid here? This board isn't fast enough for slidethreads, dipshit. You would know this if you didn't spend 95% of your browsing time on /pol/.

They think it's communism or something

Reddit is unironically a better source for information in almost every field. Veeky Forums is the only semi-decent subforum on Veeky Forums which is saying something. Veeky Forums is more fun though.

Also OP you should ask your question on /n/, they have the answers you seek.

Partly due to automobiles and suburbanization, partly economics, company takeovers, etc. Most major American cities actually had 'em, and you can find traces of public transit systems all over the place: repurposed stations, bits of rail or slots, areas where the streets used to exist but had been moved to align with bridges and other planning factors, etc.

Damn those streetcars are so aesthetic, i wish they'd make a comeback.

>negro cowcatcher

>due to the low population density of the US
FTFY
High density areas DO have mass transit in the US.

this son of a bitch is trying to slide a "Shitler" bread, a why does "X" fear the black warrior thread, and a thread from the guy who is always asking about penis torture. yeah it makes sense actually, we should probably encourage more of these.

>public transportation system is a luxury
this ideology...

>Automobile competition
This. It's well documented that the automobile industry did everything in their power to destroy things like the trolley and other forms of mass transit. The focus on the automobile led to the development of suburbs that general city planning favoring the car and thus producing cities that are unwalkable and cannot be navigated by anything other than car. That's to say nothing of the frustration and danger that comes from automobile traffic.

I mean I like driving from place to place but the car, in a sense, is one of the shittiest inventions ever conceived in terms of its negative effect on city planning.

>China doesn't have one
what are you getting this shit from?

That's not mass transit.

Did they fear the war-train warrior?

>high speed rail
>not mass transit
Just admit you're wrong user

>India doesn't have one.
Literally the crowning achievement of British India was riddling the country with rails.
>China doesn't have one.
Holy shit, what are you smoking? The Chinese rely so much on their rail, it gets fucking crowded when they have to go back to their homes from the cities during the Chink New Year holidays.

1. America is fucking huge
2. Automobile lobby

>public transportation system is a luxury
Are Americans truly this dumb?

I remember reading something about Ford buying out trams and then trashing them so people would buy cars instead

Automobile companies bought a lot of trolley systems and let them rot.

Large cities used to have active and well-maintained tram and streetcar systems. My grandfather remembers going to school on a trolley every day in 1930s and 1940s Philadelphia. Things changed when cars became more widespread (1950s), suburbs expanded (also 1950s), and public service funding was slashed (1980s).

>Why did America abandon/never develop mass transit systems

Are you retarded? Every American city has mass transit systems.

this x 100000000

OP, lurk /n/ like the other guy said, we talk about this stuff a lot

and that mass transit can even be described as satisfactory
it's the rest of the country that loses out

In any case, mass transit anywhere with a population over 2 starts to get a little ridiculous, there's buses in every town in bumfuck nowhere BC and the bus stops are oftentimes literal beach chairs with "bus stop" spray painted on them. I mean, they get you where you need to go, assuming where you need to go is wal-mart and only wal-mart.

well I mean for you they're really aren't a luxury aren't they

Because of blacks. Public transportation makes it cheap and easy to get from the ghetto to the nice parts of the city. But who wants a bunch of nogs running around among genteel people? Nobody.

So just don't build the transportation systems, and the undesirables can't get further from their homes than they can walk in an afternoon.

>black people can't drive cars into nice neighborhoods

>public transportation system is a luxury

Scale and population density. It'd be like bugging Canada for a Yukon Transit Network

>Scale and population density.
Why do these sound like excuses especially considering China and India managed to have extensive rails?

It literally took communist reign for China to get its rail system in place.

Unironically oil. It's kinda important to our national heritage.

Went to Toronto years ago...
Could buy a pass, kind of like an "all day" pass to and fro...
Streetcars everywhere; never waited more than 5-10 minutes.
Very efficient and fun way to get around a new city...

Very different from the US; from Cleveland, OH...where ironically many
of the early streetcars made were shipped to Canada...what could have been...

Niggers

>ask a /pol/ question, get a /pol/ answer
What a shocker

>Reddit is unironically a better source for information in almost every field.
Not really, Reddit will give you a circle of indecisive over-analyzers expending far too much energy arguing over minute, negligible and trivial details. Each of them is happy to write an enormous and insipid wall of text explaining why their trivial details hold more bearing than somebody else's but all it amounts to is a lot of heated gibberish with no solid conclusion ever being reached

Veeky Forums, on the other hand, has no problem giving you blunt, unfiltered, painfully obvious and brutally honest truth of the matter. That's what this place stands for

Most San Franciscans aren't gay. The majority are in one district. There's probably more in Seattle or Austin.

And it took a capitalist reign for India to get its rail system in place. I don't see your point here.

>China doesn't have one

Individualism

Less densely populated

Car interests aggressively attacking public transport system

GI getting experiences with cars during the second world war

Ready access to easily traversable rivers for large transport

the best coast does have it though

China isn't communist

It's state capitalist, right comrade?

Most down town areas had streetcars before the advent of busses and the suburban flight which meant they were no longer necessary.

That's only for a city or metropolitan area. I think OP is referring to inter state travel by train. We have shitty outdated trains. California still has yet to invest in a bullet train, even with all the traffic in the state.

Automotive Industry and Government sabotaged it

Because white Americans are frightened of black people and don't want to share a space with them

Man, train lines breed like rabbits

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

They are, it's just a shitty, expensive one, because it's fucking California.

Also, because it costs like 100 bucks to buy a ticket on a regional airline.

I ride the L and CTA bus every day, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about bud

Both China and India have massive networks you retards.

The L and the CTA smell like piss and the black people do obnoxious shit like playing rap music over bluetooth speakers, talk loudly on the phone, or feed their babies cheetos and sugary juice.

They are extremely unpleasant to be around, especially if you're riding around Rogers Park or downtown.

OP didn't really distinguish between long range public transit and commuter public transit.

For long range, it's because America has very cheap, plentiful commuter airlines and an interstate highway system, and there isn't much of a market niche in between those.

For short range, it's because Americans tend to live in suburbs, which limits the viability of public transit. Suburbs are common because America has more land on which to plant suburbs, because Americans fear cities because of crime, and because families want space in which to raise their kids.

Also, I'm like 90% sure Americans simply don't like public transit, which makes projects both harder to start, and less successful when introduced.

Not if all the places they can get a license from are far from their communities.

You don't know how crafty Americans can get.

Not really. The answer are pretty decisive.
Over here one guy answer the question then it gets flooded out by bait posts and shitposting.

Well, the Pacific Electric (in your OP) was built to spur real estate development in the early 20th century. Once these communities had developed in the 1920s, the "bustitution" began in earnest on routes with lower ridership (for the record, during this time PE was owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and not GM/National City Lines).

By the 1930s, the PE was considered antiquated and a nuisance (due to running in streets) while nobody wanted to pay to modernize it and move the tracks. The remaining lines got a boost in ridership during WWII, but continued to decline after the war, as city planners decided that a complex freeway system would be a preferable replacement.

In 1953, National City Lines took over and continued "bustituting" the routes, again due to the fact that running in city streets was increasingly detrimental to the growing issue of traffic (and again, there was no money to improve the route or modernize the system). The city of Los Angeles took over the PE in 1958, and by 1960 only the Long Beach Line remained, largely due to its (mostly) private right-of-way. In 1961, the city decided to convert that to bus service as well.

The remaining lines of the Los Angeles Railway (the streetcar system) were "bustituted" in 1963, also under municipal ownership. The LARy actually was a victim of the National City Lines "scandal", but again, this was due largely to the street-running negatively affecting traffic, and the lack of public funds to improve the route.

tl;dr the subplot of who Framed Roger Rabbit

No, that myth just gives people (especially the Boomer generation) an excuse to lament the death of the electric railway while ignoring the fact that the "muh taxes" attitude played a bigger role in its demise.

FDR and his New Deal faggotry. Fucking Goodyear and the other car companies lobbied the Feds and and then city after city into abandoning trolled in favor of buses.

Because Americans are retarded when it comes to transportation. Even ambulances are mostly private and cost you shittons.

Seriously Americucks, your country grew due to viable and cost efficient mass public transportation giving rise to social mobility. Now you're probably going to watch it die.

>public transportation system is a luxury
Fucking Americans

God, what the fuck is that Green Line

>Veeky Forums, on the other hand, has no problem giving you blunt, unfiltered, painfully obvious and brutally honest truth of the matter. That's what this place stands for

*Used to stand for.

People really do only shitpost nowadays.

The best shitpost in [current year] is the truth my friend.

>overground metro

disgusting

>the (((truth)))

Back to r/the_Donald

Threadly reminder those streetcars literally averaged 5 miles per hour.

Fuck MBTA, nobody that actually has to rely on it would call it good in any sense.

>Over here one guy answer the question then it gets flooded out by bait posts and shitposting.
Yes, because that one guy who hits the nail on the head says everything that is needed to be said and there isn't much use elsewhere for the thread about from slowly crawling it's way to the archive

Just because it is a shitpost doesn't mean it's not truthful

The interurbans could pull off 40-90mph when they had private right-of-way.

It was automobiles.

An anecdote from my city: I live in a western city that had a relatively small population until about the 1950s or so. It's also in somewhat of a remote area compared to the rest of the country, though it is one of the largest cities in America today. Our rail system is almost nonexistent.

After WWII when Eisenhower became president he had an ambitious highway system he implemented after seeing its effectiveness as general in Europe during WWII, such as with the German autobahn. He basically established a robust highway system in America with fervent support from automobile manufacturers (an important sector in America's postwar economy). The automotive industry saw a boost from the war and did well in the after war years. Also Chrysler went bankrupt in the 70s so the US government was a partner in one of America's largest auto makers, so naturally wanted to see them succeed.

Back to my city, as it started getting bigger for the first time in the 50s, local officials had to decide how to build out infrastructure. Options included trains, roads, pedestrian/bicycle, etc. Trains were mostly used for freight, so they turned exclusively to roads. There's a huge lack of rail space, even sidewalks in neighborhoods built during this era (which is a large area of the city). We're only now getting sidewalks as it's becoming more urban and dense. But because America had such a wide area and people living in suburbs the automobile was the preferred option. It's a cultural thing here, unfortunately we're now dealing with the pains of a total lack of alternative options and insane traffic congestion.

I'm not sure of the economics of it but I think roads are cheaper than rail. It's harder to build depots, stations, and tracks, let alone get the rights for the land it has to go through (with neighborhood concerns about noise and the danger of large vehicles passing nearby such), not to mention maintenance on such systems. A road is just an almost flat patch of land with a ditch and asphalt on top. I would think it doesn't take as long to make, or if it does it has less maintenance needs. So it's probably also the cheaper option.

Phoenix or Las Vegas?

Only in certain regions of the country.

>has less maintenance needs.
what are potholes? what is road resurfacing? rail=lay the rail; done forever. road=lay the road and constantly line the pockets of your local gov't contractors forever.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

There was actually a pretty decent public transportation system in Detroit in the 1950's but GM bought it and shut it down.

It was very narrow sighted as the Muslims ended up with the most oil so we were supporting terrorist with our cars by the 1990's.

American here

Yes, yes we are.

>tfw American
>tfw my countrymen actually believe this shit

Anyway to answer OP's question, yes, yes, yes, and generally yes

Don't be so disrespectful, Americans invented mass transit systems before they got rid of them.

Fuck trains.

>not real communism

Every time hahaha

man this thread reminds me I haven't been on /n/ in years, I forgot all about that place

>For short range, it's because Americans tend to live in suburbs, which limits the viability of public transit. Suburbs are common because America has more land on which to plant suburbs

Australian cities are exactly the same and most of our major cities have pretty well developed public transport.

Doesn't explain why the states themselves doesn't have it.