Streetcars in Atlanta (Chamblee, Hapeville: real estate, 2013, how much)

[cqholt]

Great article about the history of streetcars in Atlanta and the return of them.
BURNAWAY » Traces of the Past: What Once Was Old is New Again
Explains several areas to see remains of where streetcars once ran.

[arjay57]

Thank you, cq. That's an excellent article.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Thank you, cq. That's an excellent article.

Do you remember the days of streetcars in Atlanta?

[DaBurgh]

Great article. The streetcar system was way bigger than I realized - 200 miles of it all the way to places like Hapeville and Chamblee - and just 100 years ago.

Thanks for sharing

[DaBurgh]

Also it must have been nice to not have major interstates running through the heart of the city back then.

[AnsleyPark]

Thank you for posting this, cq. A very informative read. I found it really interesting that our old street car lines were owned and operated by corporations and not necessarily the city. This kinda ties into the Turner Stadium maglev discussion going on in another thread.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Thank you for posting this, cq. A very informative read. I found it really interesting that our old street car lines were owned and operated by corporations and not necessarily the city. This kinda ties into the Turner Stadium maglev discussion going on in another thread.

At one point in time, all public transportation in the US was built and operated by corporations. Look at NYC for example with it's IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit Company) and BMT (Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation) lines which are named for the companies that built and operated them as commissioned by the city of New York. In most cities though, private companies built transit lines in concert with real estate development...as the OP notes this is the reason for the way intown Atlanta looks the way it does. At one point, pretty much every city in the US of any size had a public transit system comprised of several streetcar lines.

Then things changed. After the Second World War, private call ownership ballooned when manufacturing switched from mass producing material for war to material for the growing middle class. With millions of people choosing private car ownership, transit ridership dropped off so significantly that these private companies went deep in to the red with their financials.

This meant that in most cities, they simply stopped running the systems. Only the largest cities were able to purchase what remained of the existing private systems and turn them in to publicly owned properties. For all this talk these days of privatizing public transit because they would be "better" at it, the market has already proven that private enterprise has no interest (in this country at least) in doing so on the massive scale it used to.

Urban Mass Transit In The United States | Economic History Services

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

For all this talk these days of privatizing public transit because they would be "better" at it, the market has already proven that private enterprise has no interest (in this country at least) in doing so on the massive scale it used to.

Urban Mass Transit In The United States | Economic History Services

Good article. I might steal it at some point in the future.

As for privately run transit today, It is hard to compete with free roads and public, subsidized transit. If we start to make users responsible for the full cost of their transportation choice, I think we can start get private transit to come back and be a competitive industry.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Good article. I might steal it at some point in the future.

As for privately run transit today, It is hard to compete with free roads and public, subsidized transit. If we start to make users responsible for the full cost of their transportation choice, I think we can start get private transit to come back and be a competitive industry.

Any idea what the true cost of a trip on the MARTA train is? I'd be curious in knowing.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Any idea what the true cost of a trip on the MARTA train is? I'd be curious in knowing.

That is not an easy question to answer. First, hopefully a "trip" would be charged per distance traveled. Then you have to decide what assumptions you are going to build into this scenario. Are you asking about if MARTA was run as a business and users of roads and transit were charged the full cost of the trip? Because then you first need to figure out how much roads would have to charge then see how much that would cause people to take transit so you can adjust ridership (transit gets more efficient with more people).

But, a few things to consider: Most private transit companies in the early 1900s charged $0.05. Which is $1.18 today. A public transit system today is rated mid-range cost-efficient if it costs $6 - $10 per rider. < $4 is highly cost efficient. Low > $15.