What killed streetcars?

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.



People Also Ask

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.

MORE DETAILS

Suburban electrification involved true trolley cars, but the required overhead wires were forbidden in New York (Manhattan). Traffic congestion and the high cost of conduit current collection impeded streetcar development there.

MORE DETAILS

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

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

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.

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