During the 1890s and the first two decades of the 1900s, conventional electric tramlines replaced horsecar lines in Europe and the United States and made their appearance in the larger cities of Asia, Africa, and South America.
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World's first electric trolley car invented and operated in Kansas City by John C. Henry in 1885, replacing non-electric trolleys by 1913 and quitting themselves in 1959. First application of the word, trolley to cable cars.
Horse cars were largely replaced by electric-powered trams following the improvement of an overhead trolley system on trams for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Frank J. Sprague.
Cheaper to operate and requiring less maintenance, buses began phasing out the streetcars very early. As Richmond points out, in 1926, 15 percent of the total miles traveled by Pacific Electric riders was along bus routes; that share would more than double by 1939.
Urban development got a major boost in 1887 when inventor Frank Julian Sprague developed the world's first successful electric street railway system, making it feasible to build cities and towns that were more vast in size and allowing for a greater concentration of businesses in commercial areas.
The world's first electrically operated streetcar, one of Werner von Siemens' major innovations, was inaugurated on May 12, 1881 in the Berlin suburb of Gross-Lichterfelde. The 2.5-kilometer-long line connected the Lichterfelde station with the military academy.
However, the demise of the streetcar came when lines were torn out of the major cities by bus manufacturing or oil marketing companies for the specific purpose of replacing rail service with buses. In many cases, postwar buses were cited as providing a smoother ride and a faster journey than the older, pre-war trams.
Early headlights were fueled by oil, though kerosene-fueled headlights were developed as well in the 1850s. The discovery of electricity soon led to experiments with using it to power locomotive lights, with the first-known example, a battery operated light, being tested in Russia in 1874.
One reason that people embraced automobiles was because they revived the promise of individual freedom. Compared with railroad travel, motorists were unhampered, free to follow their own path.
It was because of the introduction of the private automobile and cheap gasoline in the US. Cities began to concentrate on building freeway systems for cars and dismantling their streetcar systems as relics of the past.
What really killed the streetcar: gridlock and artificially low fares. The decline of the streetcar after World War I — when cars began to arrive on city streets — is often cast as a simple choice made by consumers. As a Smithsonian exhibition puts it, Americans chose another alternative — the automobile.
Trolleybus systems are currently in operation in five U.S. metropolitan areas: Boston, Massachusetts, operated by MBTA; see Trolleybuses in Greater Boston. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, operated by SEPTA; see Trolleybuses in Philadelphia.