What happened to Chicago streetcars?

The new public agency Chicago Transit Authority took over the streetcar system in 1947 and began to integrate the surface lines with the city's elevated train network. In the 1950s, CTA decided to phase out streetcars in favor of motor and electric trolley buses, and Chicago's last streetcar ran in June 1958.



People Also Ask

Between 1947 and 1958 all streetcars were eliminated (and 700 new ones scrapped or turned into El cars) because busses had a lower overhead cost (no track or wire) and trolleys got in the way of automobiles. In the same ten years, about sixteen miles of elevated in the inner city were abandoned and demolished.

MORE DETAILS

Electricity prices rose and rapidly-growing cities soon outgrew a network of overhead cables in desperate need of investment. When Cardiff's trolleybus number 262 returned to the Newport Road depot for the last time in January 1970 it marked the end of an era.

MORE DETAILS

Chicago at one time did claim to have the largest streetcar system in the world, with a fleet of over 3,200 passenger cars and over 1,000 miles of track – a claim backed up in several sources we found. It all started in 1859 with a horse-drawn car running along a single rail track down State Street.

MORE DETAILS

In 1883 New York City's first steam-driven Cable Car emerged, which ran until 1909 when electric trolleys hit the urban scene of all five boroughs.

MORE DETAILS

LISTEN: Unearthing London's transportation history introduced the horse-drawn trolleys in 1875. Two decades later, the system was converted to electric streetcars.

MORE DETAILS

1909: Electric trolleys replaced the steam-powered cable cars in all five boroughs, giving NYC transportation a sudden boost in speed and efficiency. 1957: The last streetcars disappeared, fully replaced by the city's bus system.

MORE DETAILS

The last NY streetcars were removed in the late 1950s in favor of diesel buses.

MORE DETAILS

Automobile usage began supplanting the trolley not long after the end of the First World War. Some routes were so unprofitable that they were abandoned in the 1920s, reports Touring Pittsburgh by Trolley, a nostalgic look at trolley service.

MORE DETAILS