Why did street cars disappear?

The streetcars began losing ridership and money, and voters refused to rescue them — a pattern played out in many cities across America at the time. Ultimately, the last Red Car stopped service in 1961, on the route from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach.



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The quiet death of the streetcar As they fought to stay alive during the Great Depression, many companies invested in buses, which were cheaper and more flexible. Initially they operated mainly as feeder systems to bring commuters to the end of lines, but as time went on, they began to replace some lines entirely.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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The advent of personal motor vehicles and the improvements in motorized buses caused the rapid disappearance of the tram from most western and Asian countries by the end of the 1950s (for example the first major UK city to completely abandon its trams was Manchester by January 1949).

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The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is a driverless train line connected to the London Tube network. You can pay for your journey with Oyster cards, Visitor Oyster cards or contactless payment.

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A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in USA) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars.

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If you've been on a streetcar in San Francisco or a trolley in Philadelphia, you've ridden a tram. The word tram was originally a Scottish term for the wagons that are used in coal mines, stemming from a Middle Flemish word meaning rung or handle of a barrow.

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But the trams had become a political football (in Leeds it was Labour that did for them, in Liverpool it was the Conservatives). They were unwanted clutter from the past at a time when operating costs of public transport networks were rising and meeting housing targets was the big priority for investment.

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