GM must remake the mass transit system it murdered

[nxylas]

Article on Common Dreams today:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/16-6

[marmar]

1. Agreed.....when you drive around Detroit, the former trolley tracks GM hastily paved over.....

.... will poke up through the pavement as streets get worn by the ridiculous parade of SUVs and other monstrosities GM has built over the years.

[nxylas]

2. Cool

Does that mean we could start running trolleys on them again?

[happyslug]

3. The old tracks will have to be replaced, that will take at least five years

Remember, except for some minor exceptions, none were laid in the last 50 years (i.e. almost none installed since about 1950) with most of rails installed prior to 1929 and the Great Depression. While most rails can last forever as re-enforcement for concrete, as rails to run wheels on most of such rail is un-usable (Some can be used, but the switches which are the heart of any rail system MUST be replaced and even the strongest steel has a life span when it comes to use, concrete is generally only considered good for 10 years as a highway base, rails older then 50 are long past their life expectancy). People tend to forget it was rail life more then anything else that spelled the doom for most small city rail systems AND the interurbans which tended to fail in the 1920s and 1930s (The interurbans went first, mostly in the 1920s, basically as it came time to replace the tracks and cars, Interurban looking at their low ridership and the drop in riding ship on such lines in the 1920s, converted first to buses and then completely closed down, the conversion to buses was to avoid having to lay down new track. In the mid to late 1930s the Interurbans were followed by the small city Streetcar systems, Small cities NOT tied in with a nearby larger city (In Pennsylvania the classic case is the State Capital Harrisburg that replaced its trolley system with buses about 1939, Volume of traffic was low and the pressure from Automobiles was to great, so conversion occurred).

Larger cities tended to keep their Streetcars till the 1950s. Small Cities with connections by Streetcars to Larger cities often retained streetcars till the 1950s (For Example Washington Pa which had connections to Pittsburgh by Streetcar till 1954, another example was the Greensburg, which retained its system to the 1954 do to connections with Pittsburgh and the Monongahela valley). These systems were torn up, some parts lasting till the 1960s (In the Case of the Washington Pa Trolleys, that part in Allegheny County, which is the county Pittsburgh is in, retained the route INSIDE Allegheny County to this day. The Present LRV route is the same route as the Washington Pa Trolley route till just short of the Allegheny County line. Now the route is still short of the Washington County Line, a bridge was removed in the 1950s, but the route from the other side of the long removed bridge is still in use, as a bike path through a local township part. Once in Washington County you can still see where the trolley went by following the Telephone polls that go BEHIND some homes instead of in front of them (The polls followed the old Streetcar route). Most of the rest has been lost. One part is the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, but most of the rest either forgotten or taken over by Highways. All will have to be rebuilt and that will take years.

[Not Sure]

4. I'm not sure I'd trust them to get it right (nt)

[.... callchet ....]

5. Street car Scandal

When I was in college I had a very insightful professor. He warned of the dangers of becoming a service economy. This was in 1962. He also told of a holding Company called Christiana that in the twenties went around and bought up trolley companies and let them go bankrupt. I have never been able to find anything about the Christiana Holding COmpany, but the evidence of a company like that exists. Here is an example. http://environment.about.com/od/fossilfuels/a/streetcars.htm
Happy Holidays to the good people I have seen on this sight.

[nxylas]

6. Never heard that name before

National City Lines was a consortium consisting of GM, Standard Oil, Firestone tires and a couple of others. That's the name I most often see in connection to the demise of the streetcars.