Why all the opposition to MARTA and public transportation? (Atlanta: subsidized, income)

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

That hasn't always been the case ... cities like Minneapolis (and maybe Atlanta?) used to have very extensive streetcar networks, but most of the tracks for the old streetcar lines are long gone (some of them are bike trails now). That's too bad ... those rails could be put to very good use today.

Oh yes, Atlanta's Streetcar system was one of the best in the country IMHO:



The funny thing is though is that MARTA buses run on most of the same exact routes (plus about 60 more) shown in that scan above. It would be nice if the rails were never torn up in the first place though.

[northstar22]

Why were they torn up, if you don't mind me asking?

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Oh yes, Atlanta's Streetcar system was one of the best in the country IMHO:

It looks very good. The one Minneapolis and St. Paul had wasn't too bad, either:

1933 Twin Cities Street Car Map (GIF)

1946 Minneapolis Street Car Map (PDF)
1947 St. Paul Street Car Map (PDF)

"At its peak in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT) operated over 900 streetcars, owned 523 miles of track, and carried more than 200 million passengers annually."

Twin Cities by Trolley

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by flyingwriter

Why were they torn up, if you don't mind me asking?

There were a number of reasons.

-Georgia Power (who ran the Streetcars long before there was a MARTA) moved to trackless trolleys (electric buses) because they felt it would be cheaper.

-The prevailing thought at the time, everywhere in America, was that mass transit was dead and people should start driving for all of their transportation needs. It's no coincidence that just a few years after the last Streetcar rolled in 1948 that construction of the Downtown Connector began.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

It looks very good. The one Minneapolis and St. Paul wasn't too bad, either:

1933 Minneapolis Street Car Map

http://www.trolleyride.org/History/P...s_map_1946.pdf

http://www.trolleyride.org/History/P...l_map_1947.pdf

Nice finds

About Atlanta: Can you imagine that scan was just of the City of Atlanta proper at the time. It didn't show the lines in Decatur, East Point, College Park, Marietta, and Buckhead as well as all of the other forgotten lines around the city.

[skipcromer]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Nice finds

About Atlanta: Can you imagine that scan was just of the City of Atlanta proper at the time. It didn't show the lines in Decatur, East Point, College Park, Marietta, and Buckhead as well as all of the other forgotten lines around the city.

Im a bit of a nerd when it comes to public transportation. After seeing the map of the twin cities posted I had to show this one of St. Louis. Every red line you see was a street car line.

[spotch]

Wow, awesome map. If you have any more you should post them too

/nerd

[jetgraphics]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

It would be nice if the rails were never torn up in the first place though.

The Streetcar Conspiracy - How General Motors Deliberately Destroyed Public Transit (http://saveourwetlands.org/streetcar.htm - broken link)

The electric streetcar, ... did not die a natural death: General Motors killed it. GM killed it by employing a host of anti-competitive devices, which, like National City Lines, debased rail transit and promoted auto sales.
...
In 1922, according to GM's own files, Sloan established a special unit within the corporation, which was charged, among other things, with the task of replacing America's electric railways with cars, trucks and buses.
A year earlier, in 1921, GM lost $65 million, leading Sloan to conclude that the auto market was saturated, that those who desired cars already owned them, and that the only way to increase GM's sales and restore its profitability was by eliminating its principal rival: electric railways.
At the time, 90 percent of all trips were by rail, chiefly electric rail; only one in 10 Americans owned an automobile. There were 1,200 separate electric street and interurban railways, a thriving and profitable industry with 44,000 miles of track, 300,000 employees, 15 billion annual passengers, and $1 billion in income. Virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system.

[More at the link]
------------
This amplifies the outrage of using taxpayer funds to bail out GM - the killer of urban rail mass transit.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by jetgraphics

The Streetcar Conspiracy - How General Motors Deliberately Destroyed Public Transit (http://saveourwetlands.org/streetcar.htm - broken link)

The electric streetcar, ... did not die a natural death: General Motors killed it. GM killed it by employing a host of anti-competitive devices, which, like National City Lines, debased rail transit and promoted auto sales.
...
In 1922, according to GM's own files, Sloan established a special unit within the corporation, which was charged, among other things, with the task of replacing America's electric railways with cars, trucks and buses.
A year earlier, in 1921, GM lost $65 million, leading Sloan to conclude that the auto market was saturated, that those who desired cars already owned them, and that the only way to increase GM's sales and restore its profitability was by eliminating its principal rival: electric railways.
At the time, 90 percent of all trips were by rail, chiefly electric rail; only one in 10 Americans owned an automobile. There were 1,200 separate electric street and interurban railways, a thriving and profitable industry with 44,000 miles of track, 300,000 employees, 15 billion annual passengers, and $1 billion in income. Virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system.

[More at the link]
------------
This amplifies the outrage of using taxpayer funds to bail out GM - the killer of urban rail mass transit.

It really is depressing when you think about what really happened. GM complicity in the sprawled out country we now live in (not just in the South) is amazing. They even gave the blueprint in 1939:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cO9X4NMb4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7dT2HId-c

[johnatl]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Nice finds

About Atlanta: Can you imagine that scan was just of the City of Atlanta proper at the time. It didn't show the lines in Decatur, East Point, College Park, Marietta, and Buckhead as well as all of the other forgotten lines around the city.

I know I've mentioned this before, but my next door neighbor is a native in her late 70's.

According to her, between the streetcars and the various interurbans, you could make your way from Marietta to Stone Mountain - and then some.

She also told me that the streetcar on Peachtree went as far North as Oglethorpe University, which was considered "the country" back then.