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The Great American Streetcar Myth
September 23rd, 2010
By Stephen Smith
Read More: http://marketurbanism.com/2010/09/23/the-great-american-streetcar-myth/
Among liberals in the planning profession today, the story of the Great American Streetcar Conspiracy is widely known. There are more nuanced variants, but it goes something like this: Streetcars were once plentiful and efficient, but then along came a bunch of car and oil companies like General Motors and Standard Oil, and they bought up all the streetcar companies, tore out their tracks and replaced the routes with buses, and ultimately set America on its present path to motorized suburban hell. Although the story dates back to a 1950 court conviction and was retold by academics and government employees throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the theory leapt into the public consciousness in 1988 with both a 60 Minutes piece and a fictionalized account in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Even today it resonates with liberals – The Atlantic casually mentions it as the reason America abandoned mass transit, The Nation wrote a whole article about it a few years ago, Fast Food Nation discusses it, and in the last week I’ve seen two references to the theory in the planning blogosphere.
Though the story has embedded itself in the liberal worldview, it has little basis in reality. A cursory look at transportation history shows that motorization was already well underway by the time National City Lines – the holding company backed by GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, among others – started buying up transit companies in 1938. Other factors, often championed by progressives, had already drove the industry into decline and it was really only a matter of time before buses took over. Although General Motors and other car-centric companies were certainly lobbying the government in their favor, the progressive tendency to vilify private transit companies had already turned the public against streetcars, and local governments were already heavily predisposed towards motorization by the late ’30s. It is perhaps because of this progressive complicity in streetcars’ demise, along with continued loyalty to state ownership and regulatory power, that the modern liberal narrative omits the true reasons for the decline of streetcars in America.
By the time the automobile really hit the scene, the streetcar had been around for about as long as the car’s been around today. First powered by horses in the 1830s, later by steam-powered cable systems, and finally by electricity, it’s fair to say that the streetcar was a deeply entrenched mode of transit by the beginning of the 20th century. But while the streetcar gained in popularity, the industry also attracted a cruft of regulation and corruption that dogged it till its dying day. Bribery was endemic in the awarding of service franchises, and their exclusive monopolies (often granted by the government) didn’t do much to endear them to the public, either. Ironically, though, it was these exclusive contracts that eventually brought streetcars down. Eager to receive guarantees on their large up-front investments, streetcar operators agreed to contract provisions that held fares constant at five cents and mandated that rail line owners maintain the pavement around their tracks. These rules made sense in the 19th century – inflation was a relatively minor phenomenon until World War I, and horses were rather destructive to the cobblestone streets – but as the next century dawned, these provisions grew increasingly anachronistic and would soon lead to the streetcar’s downfall.
The five-cent fare became a birthright to early 20th century voters and was a third-rail to politicians, not unlike toll-free roads today. Even when wartime inflation eroded the value of the nickel to half its prewar value, local governments would not release streetcar operators from their obligations to charge the uniform fare for all trips, no matter the distance. (Some have argued that this absence of zone pricing, which was so common in Europe, was itself sprawl-inducing, as it made living in far-off suburbs no more expensive than living closer to the city center.) The paving requirements, too, turned out to be poisonous to the industry. When automobiles started arriving in cities, their roads were literally being paid for by the competition, despite the fact that horses had long been phased out, and electric streetcars ran on dedicated tracks and didn’t touch the pavement. Organized labor also took its toll on the streetcar, driving up wages in a heavily labor-intensive industry where the competition – jitneys, municipal buses, and automobiles – had much fewer labor restrictions (not to mention lower or nonexistent tax burdens).
September 23rd, 2010
By Stephen Smith
Read More: http://marketurbanism.com/2010/09/23/the-great-american-streetcar-myth/
Among liberals in the planning profession today, the story of the Great American Streetcar Conspiracy is widely known. There are more nuanced variants, but it goes something like this: Streetcars were once plentiful and efficient, but then along came a bunch of car and oil companies like General Motors and Standard Oil, and they bought up all the streetcar companies, tore out their tracks and replaced the routes with buses, and ultimately set America on its present path to motorized suburban hell. Although the story dates back to a 1950 court conviction and was retold by academics and government employees throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the theory leapt into the public consciousness in 1988 with both a 60 Minutes piece and a fictionalized account in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Even today it resonates with liberals – The Atlantic casually mentions it as the reason America abandoned mass transit, The Nation wrote a whole article about it a few years ago, Fast Food Nation discusses it, and in the last week I’ve seen two references to the theory in the planning blogosphere.
Though the story has embedded itself in the liberal worldview, it has little basis in reality. A cursory look at transportation history shows that motorization was already well underway by the time National City Lines – the holding company backed by GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, among others – started buying up transit companies in 1938. Other factors, often championed by progressives, had already drove the industry into decline and it was really only a matter of time before buses took over. Although General Motors and other car-centric companies were certainly lobbying the government in their favor, the progressive tendency to vilify private transit companies had already turned the public against streetcars, and local governments were already heavily predisposed towards motorization by the late ’30s. It is perhaps because of this progressive complicity in streetcars’ demise, along with continued loyalty to state ownership and regulatory power, that the modern liberal narrative omits the true reasons for the decline of streetcars in America.
By the time the automobile really hit the scene, the streetcar had been around for about as long as the car’s been around today. First powered by horses in the 1830s, later by steam-powered cable systems, and finally by electricity, it’s fair to say that the streetcar was a deeply entrenched mode of transit by the beginning of the 20th century. But while the streetcar gained in popularity, the industry also attracted a cruft of regulation and corruption that dogged it till its dying day. Bribery was endemic in the awarding of service franchises, and their exclusive monopolies (often granted by the government) didn’t do much to endear them to the public, either. Ironically, though, it was these exclusive contracts that eventually brought streetcars down. Eager to receive guarantees on their large up-front investments, streetcar operators agreed to contract provisions that held fares constant at five cents and mandated that rail line owners maintain the pavement around their tracks. These rules made sense in the 19th century – inflation was a relatively minor phenomenon until World War I, and horses were rather destructive to the cobblestone streets – but as the next century dawned, these provisions grew increasingly anachronistic and would soon lead to the streetcar’s downfall.
The five-cent fare became a birthright to early 20th century voters and was a third-rail to politicians, not unlike toll-free roads today. Even when wartime inflation eroded the value of the nickel to half its prewar value, local governments would not release streetcar operators from their obligations to charge the uniform fare for all trips, no matter the distance. (Some have argued that this absence of zone pricing, which was so common in Europe, was itself sprawl-inducing, as it made living in far-off suburbs no more expensive than living closer to the city center.) The paving requirements, too, turned out to be poisonous to the industry. When automobiles started arriving in cities, their roads were literally being paid for by the competition, despite the fact that horses had long been phased out, and electric streetcars ran on dedicated tracks and didn’t touch the pavement. Organized labor also took its toll on the streetcar, driving up wages in a heavily labor-intensive industry where the competition – jitneys, municipal buses, and automobiles – had much fewer labor restrictions (not to mention lower or nonexistent tax burdens).
