Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program. My hometown had extensive tram lines (and a halfway built subway that we ran out of money for in the 20s) that got ripped up when I75 got built.
A lot of cities also just did this of their own accord, partially to enforce segregation and redlining. Awful harder for black and brown people to get to your Rich White Neighborhood if there’s no train or bus service to easily take them there.
Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program.
Not quite! Railroads were built using land grants, so they’d literally build cities along their lines to sell the real estate they got for free at inflated prices. Privately owned and maintained right of way is unsustainably expensive, so once the land grants ran out railroads had to continuously scramble to find a way to operate profitably. At the second half of the 19th century they began consolidating and building trunk lines for increasingly massive locomotives, in the mid 20th century they began using diesels to further reduce costs and in the late 20th century they found technologies and advanced freight routing techniques to further squeeze costs. Now in the 21st century they haven’t yet found the next way to remain profitable so we shall see what they do.
There were a handful of documented instances of the auto industry buying and mismanaging interurban and trolley routes, but trolleys were already on the decline before the auto industry even got their feet under them because they also were built via land grants and real estate speculation the exact same way that railroads were built! This stopped being viable not long after it stopped being viable for the railroads. Trolley services were built to share the streets with pedestrians, cyclists and horse carriages, and the streets were simply not built to separate the incompatible traffic of automobiles and trolleys, so once automobiles outnumbered trolleys the traffic became too much to be able to run reliable trolley service and the death spiral was unstoppable
The final nail in the coffin for rail passenger service was in 1968 when the US Postal Service ended mail contracts with the railroads, daily passenger service to every city ceased to be financially viable. Before that point, railroads would run at least one train a day with an RPO, and if they’re already running a crew out there why not also bring some freight and passengers along too?
Then of course in the 1970s the ill-fated Penn Central collapsed in the second largest bankruptcy in US history (and nearly collapsed the entire North American rail system in the process!) which is where Conrail and Amtrak came in, federally owned entities to keep vital rail service operating. Conrail was eventually sold off into what’s now CSX and Norfolk Southern and Amtrak remains, constantly kneecapped by competing private interests (like remember that time Amtrak ran profitable freight service? Yeah the private railroads really didn’t like being outshined by Amtrak!)
How do you expect someone to imagine life without a car, when they live in an area where you have to drive three miles to get to the nearest store, and there are no sidewalks or bike lanes?
Can you really shame the caged mouse for being unable to imagine a forest?
Are we shaming them? I’m just acknowledging they can’t even conceive of an alternate future, which I think what “car-brained” is getting at.
But it’s a bit like the copper tops in the Matrix–they’ll always potentially be your enemy, through no fault of their own. For instance, these car brained people you are so eager to have sympathy for will show up in droves to complain about anything that would even theoretically lengthen their car commute by even a microsecond.
Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program. My hometown had extensive tram lines (and a halfway built subway that we ran out of money for in the 20s) that got ripped up when I75 got built.
A lot of cities also just did this of their own accord, partially to enforce segregation and redlining. Awful harder for black and brown people to get to your Rich White Neighborhood if there’s no train or bus service to easily take them there.
Not quite! Railroads were built using land grants, so they’d literally build cities along their lines to sell the real estate they got for free at inflated prices. Privately owned and maintained right of way is unsustainably expensive, so once the land grants ran out railroads had to continuously scramble to find a way to operate profitably. At the second half of the 19th century they began consolidating and building trunk lines for increasingly massive locomotives, in the mid 20th century they began using diesels to further reduce costs and in the late 20th century they found technologies and advanced freight routing techniques to further squeeze costs. Now in the 21st century they haven’t yet found the next way to remain profitable so we shall see what they do.
The auto industry spent until about the end of the Great Depression selling farmers and ruralites on cars, partnering with cycling advocacy groups to lobby governments to pave existing public roads (passing the infrastructure cost to the government instead of themselves). Then as they sold more vehicles they turned their customers into their lobbyists through auto clubs like the AAA to encourage better infrastructure for cars in cities, and by the time the Federal Highway Act was passed everyone involved had already grown up with automobiles everywhere on publicly funded roads.
There were a handful of documented instances of the auto industry buying and mismanaging interurban and trolley routes, but trolleys were already on the decline before the auto industry even got their feet under them because they also were built via land grants and real estate speculation the exact same way that railroads were built! This stopped being viable not long after it stopped being viable for the railroads. Trolley services were built to share the streets with pedestrians, cyclists and horse carriages, and the streets were simply not built to separate the incompatible traffic of automobiles and trolleys, so once automobiles outnumbered trolleys the traffic became too much to be able to run reliable trolley service and the death spiral was unstoppable
The final nail in the coffin for rail passenger service was in 1968 when the US Postal Service ended mail contracts with the railroads, daily passenger service to every city ceased to be financially viable. Before that point, railroads would run at least one train a day with an RPO, and if they’re already running a crew out there why not also bring some freight and passengers along too?
Then of course in the 1970s the ill-fated Penn Central collapsed in the second largest bankruptcy in US history (and nearly collapsed the entire North American rail system in the process!) which is where Conrail and Amtrak came in, federally owned entities to keep vital rail service operating. Conrail was eventually sold off into what’s now CSX and Norfolk Southern and Amtrak remains, constantly kneecapped by competing private interests (like remember that time Amtrak ran profitable freight service? Yeah the private railroads really didn’t like being outshined by Amtrak!)
Ok but, why male
modelstrain tracks?Americans aren’t car brained, they’re trapped in a system they didn’t build and can’t control.
A distinction without a difference.
A mouse raised in a cage will be cage-brained.
Too many USAians can’t imagine life without driving a car, the same way that mouse can’t imagine a forest.
How do you expect someone to imagine life without a car, when they live in an area where you have to drive three miles to get to the nearest store, and there are no sidewalks or bike lanes?
Can you really shame the caged mouse for being unable to imagine a forest?
Are we shaming them? I’m just acknowledging they can’t even conceive of an alternate future, which I think what “car-brained” is getting at.
But it’s a bit like the copper tops in the Matrix–they’ll always potentially be your enemy, through no fault of their own. For instance, these car brained people you are so eager to have sympathy for will show up in droves to complain about anything that would even theoretically lengthen their car commute by even a microsecond.
If calling people names that sound insulting in order to point out their lack of intelligence and/or imagination isn’t shaming, then maybe not…
And I’m not defended car dependency or even sympathizing with car-users. I’d much prefer to have a robust rail system.
I was merely pointing out the flaw in your “distinction without a difference” argument. There is a difference.
A difference in political messaging, yes. In describing a reality, no.
It does make a difference in describing reality.
The difference is whether they’re being willfully ignorant or simply born into a system which compels them to ignorance.
Who framed Roger rabbit?
Not to mention that they were able to run the new interstate highways right through Black neighborhoods.
Large automakers built privately-funded highways? I didn’t know that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
They didn’t need to privately fund highways. They just removed the competition.
That’s atrocious.