There were trains coming in and out of Philly fifty miles north for people going to work 40 years ago, then slowly they stopped and the railroad stations were sold for restaurants etc.
There were 7 or 8 cities with electric trolleys, and in the 1940s. General Motors gave them good deals on diesel buses, and the infrastructure went to hell, no upkeep. The only one I know operating now is Dayton, Ohio, who maintained their infrastructure. To build that infrastructure now is not cost effective, nor could any of those places afford it.
That was clean, cheap, public transportation. The idiots from the other cities sold their trolleys to Canadian cities, and took the polluting bus deals.
America does have a lot of idiots....and I guess that stupidity was passed down. The real deal would have been finding a way to streamline trains....we see them now as trams in major cities, or Disney World. Just think what a great system could have been built in the prosperity age...not many long range planners back then. No infrastructure then, means now it’s unaffordable now.
SEPTA was still running limited commuter train service to Bethlehem up until 1981. Then SEPTA’s big plan for a “center city commuter tunnel” came to pass, resulting in Reading Terminal being converted into Philly’s convention center (a money-loser), and all the diesel trains stopped—other places they served were Newtown and Reading. All SEPTA trains are electric-powered now, and yet that didn’t even stop the electrified network from shrinking—trains from West Chester were cut back to Elwyn.
The creeping government control seems to have been inspired by New York City, itself a basket case. They were loath to have their city-funded subway (infrastructure-wise) operated by private companies, so they imposed a fare cap—the companies could charge no more than 5¢ for decades no matter the length of travel (imagine riding as far as 30 miles for a nickel in the mid-twentieth century?), and by the time the city allowed them to raise fares, the damage was done and the companies were bankrupted.
Today there’s only one rail line running down the San Francisco Peninsula. In the early 1900s, there was a number of spurs around the south bay in addition to inter-city electric lines which made it easy to get around. By 1931, the system had 34 streetcars on 90 miles of track. Then the automobile took off and that was the beginning of the end of the rail lines. The “Vasona Branch” connected Palo Alto to the Saratoga area, but it was ripped out in 1964 to build Foothill Expressway. There were rumors that Goodyear had something to do with the decision to end rail service. The old station in Los Altos is a gorgeous building and has housed a number of businesses since train service ended. It was just renovated and looks great.
Nonsense. There were plenty of central planners in America back then, but luckily for us the Soviets had more. Trains and trolleys are not good investments. They’re not dynamic or flexible enough. The best is a bus system for public transportation.
Get the government out of public transit and you’d see clean, low cost bus service, so effective that for many people owning a car wouldn’t be worth it.