Quote:
Originally Posted by Centropolis
it blows my mind neither st. louis nor detroit built a real rapid transit system considering that the streetcar system appeared to be completely maxed out in both cities.
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St`Louis has a decent sized and effective LRT system. It`s Detroit that didn`t create any rapid transit and still hasn`t.
The wholesale destruction of the streetcar systems, contrary to popular belief, wasn`t due solely to GM. Post-WW1, the car began to make a real difference in how the public got around and Post-WW2, the change was huge as everyone seemed to own a car. Few systems actually had exclusive ROW and with the huge increase in car traffic in the cities, streetcars were very much slowing traffic down. Buses were seen as far more flexible in the urban environment as they could negotiate around accidents, construction, and breakdowns of other vehicles. The buses also offered the kind of service that streetcars couldn`t in the new and rapidly growing lower density suburbs.
Streetcar expansion into suburban areas was not cost effective and so the tracks were ripped up so that buses could run from the new white suburbs directly downtown without having to negotiate their way around streetcars. The streetcar ridership began to fall dramatically at the same time due to `white flight` so the cities had expensive streetcars and tracks to repair with collapsing ridership due to a plunging population and a much poorer one to boot. In the US this was made much worse by the fact that City Halls didn`t want to spend a lot of money on new streetcars and track/catenary repairs when the people using them were increasingly black.
The buses took over because they were transporting the white suburbanites while the streetcar tracks, infrastructure, and rolling stock was allowed to die a slow death because they were increasingly only serving the inner-city black community. The many urban freeways built after WW2 also ripped thru and destroyed inner city black areas which meant the destruction of neighbourhoods but also streetcar tracks and the cities had no intention of reconstructing those ripped up tracks for the black population. The blacks needed better transit but the wealthy white suburbanites wanted their tax dollars going toward new roads in their new suburbs...….guess who won that argument?
The destruction of streetcar routes was another example of white flight`s long-term negative urban consequences.