Streetcars........ (university, live in, prices)

[ckhthankgod]

Can this work in your city, if you don't have them already?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us...html?th&emc=th

[Chicago60614]

Here's just a partial list of streetcar systems that were operating in the US last century. They're listed in order of the year they were shut down. Most of them were bought by automotive companies (mostly GM), who shut them down, tore up all the infrastructure, and replaced them with buses made by their companies. It's one of the largest business scandels in history. All towns with more than 10,000 people use to have a streetcar system, and they were linked together through interurbans (electric train lines that ran at fairly high speeds connecting all cities together with frequent train service. For instance you could quite easily go from a small town in Iowa on the streetcar to the nearest interurban stop, and take that straight through to New York City in roughly one day. This system blanketed the entire midwest/northeast/south.


1945 Austin Texas Bangor Maine La Crosse Wisconsin Lincoln Nebraska Newport News Virginia Salt Lake City Utah Savannah Georgia Worcester Massachusetts
1946 Albany New York Hershey Pennsylvania Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario
Lévis Québec New Albany Indiana New York (Manhattan) New York
Oklahoma City Oklahoma Peoria Illinois Schenectady New York Stoneham Massachusetts Tampa Florida
1947 Akron Ohio Boise Idaho Dayton Ohio Fairmont West Virginia
Fort Wayne Indiana Hagerstown Maryland Knoxville Tennessee Lancaster Pennsylvania Lethbridge Alberta Little Rock Arkansas Marion Indiana
Memphis Tennessee New Bedford Massachusetts Niagara Falls Ontario
North Vancouver British Columbia Parkersburg West Virginia Pueblo Colorado
Tuscaloosa Alabama
1948 Fort William Ontario Louisville Kentucky New Haven Connecticut New York (Bronx) New York Norfolk Virginia Oakland California Phoenix Arizona
Port Arthur Ontario Providence Rhode Island Roanoke Virginia Québec Québec Quincy Massachusetts St. Catherines Ontario Saint John New Brunswick St. John's Newfoundland Sioux City Iowa Victoria British Columbia Wheeling West Virginia
1949 Atlanta Georgia Columbus Ohio Cornwall Ontario Electric freight service continued until 1971. Halifax Nova Scotia Jersey City New Jersey Nelson British Columbia Richmond Virginia St. Petersburg Florida San Diego California
Toledo Ohio
1950 Buffalo New York Calgary Alberta Covington Kentucky Denver Colorado Portland Oregon Regina Saskatchewan Sudbury Ontario Westchester New York
1951 Cincinnati Ohio Des Moines Iowa Edmonton Alberta Fort Collins Colorado Hamilton Ontario Saskatoon Saskatchewan Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania
1952 Reading Pennsylvania Yonkers New York
1953 Birmingham Alabama Indianapolis Indiana Kansas City Kansas
1954 Allentown Pennsylvania Altoona Pennsylvania Cleveland Ohio City lines (Cleveland Transit System) Minneapolis / St. Paul Minnesota Scranton Pennsylvania
1955 Atlantic City New Jersey Omaha Nebraska Vancouver British Columbia
Winnipeg Manitoba
1956 Dallas Texas Detroit Michigan New York (Brooklyn) New York Rochester New York light-rail subway
1957 Kansas City Missouri New York (Queens) New York Queensboro Bridge shuttle
1958 Chicago Illnois Milwaukee Wisconsin
1959 Montréal Québec Ottawa Ontario
1960 Johnstown Pennsylvania
1962 Washington D.C.
1963 Baltimore Maryland Los Angeles California
1966 St. Louis Missouri
1974 El Paso Texas International line to Juarez, Mexico

[Chicago60614]

Not counting the hundreds of streetcar systems, by WWII in the United States there were over 15,000 miles of interurbans connecting the systems together.

Here are pictures from the CRANDIC website. This was the Cedar Rapids And Iowa City railway. The interurbans ran multiple times an hour from 5am to past midnight daily. The trip cost 10 cents, and would travel at speeds of over 90 miles per hour. There were dozens of stops along the way, and the trains could quickly slow down, people would jump on, and the train would zoom off again. The downtown Iowa City to downtown Cedar Rapids trip was actually a fair amount faster on the old interurban than it is today in a car. The system connected the streetcar systems of the two towns, and during WWII had a ridership of almost 600,000. This between two towns that at the time had roughly 20,000 and 40,000 people. When freight needed to be transported between the towns, they'd just attach some freight cars behind the passenger car and pull it along as well. Mostly it was coal for the power plants or the 8am "milk car" that would deliver milk to the University each morning. During a football game in 1922, a rainstorm made the road between the two cities a big pile of mud. Over 1,500 people were stranded in bogged down cars, and the Interurban sent out a fleet of cars to go pick everyone up who had abandoned their vehicles and take them home.







This is just one random example of what was all over the country. Can you imagine if we still had this today! So sad!

[ckhthankgod]

Yeah, we need to bring that back. Especially considering the issues with Gas prices and the lack of options for people that live in rural communities, this would be a great idea today.

[supernerdgirl]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

This is just one random example of what was all over the country. Can you imagine if we still had this today! So sad!

Stop making me sad.

[toughguy]

Seattle just got the S.L.U.T:

[Southlander]

Our city, Decatur, Alabama, had streetcars up until the late 1930s, when they went to a privately-owned bus system. They pulled up the steel rails during WWII to recycle them into warplanes and boats. Some of the rails are still there, under the pavement.

[Ann_Arbor]

even Muncie, IN had street-cars

[bostoner]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

This is just one random example of what was all over the country. Can you imagine if we still had this today! So sad!

That would be AMAZING to have today. Sad indeed.

Originally Posted by toughguy

Seattle just got the S.L.U.T:

Are you serious?

[JMT]

I love streetcars! Here are some pics I found on flickr of the old-fashioned streetcars which I prefer.

Memphis:











Tampa: