
Los Angeles and the 'great American streetcar scandal' - anexprogrammer
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/25/story-cities-los-angeles-great-american-streetcar-scandal
======
crzwdjk
One thing that the article doesn't mention but was still an important factor
in the streetcars' demise: the need to replace the capital stock. Things like
tracks and trains don't last forever, and eventually you have to replace them
completely rather than just doing normal maintenance, but that only happens
every few decades. If you spread out the replacement, it's not so bad, but I
suspect many streetcar companies didn't bother doing that through the 20s
since they were still relatively new (and 30 years counts as "relatively new"
for tracks). But then the Depression hit and funds became hard to come by,
followed by WWII which led to a surge in ridership but a shortage of
materials. By the end of the war, not only were streetcars facing increasing
competition from cars driving on new highways, the systems were also
physically worn out and needed to be totally replaced. Indeed, this is exactly
what happened to the Pacific Electric's Long Beach line, just with a gap of 29
years between closing the old line and opening the shiny new one in exactly
the same place.

~~~
flexie
Today you have streetcars ("trams") in more than 200 European cities and they
have also needed replacements and been upgraded from time to time. So why did
streetcars thrive in most of Europe, but barely survived in America? We had
depressions and world wars in Europe too.

~~~
crzwdjk
That has more to do with what happened after the war: America was doing quite
well and had piles of money to spend on roads and cars and suburban houses,
while most of Europe was pretty devastated and had to spend everything just on
rebuilding, without much left over for things like cars and highways, and so
focused their investments on public transport. Even so, a huge number of
European cities did end up abandoning their streetcar systems, either because
the city was small enough that buses were deemed adequate or because it was
big enough to have a metro system. The other big exception to the general
trend was the Communist countries where public transport was encouraged over
private automobiles for a range of reasons. But even in many of the ex-USSR
countries, there has been a similar trend of streetcar infrastructure wearing
out and getting abandoned rather than replaced.

~~~
anexprogrammer
UK was a financial wreck at the end of the war, yet still fully committed to
internal combustion. We did irreparable damage to the rail network, abolished
all tram networks except one, and built huge car-centered networks (spaghetti
junction in Birmingham being the most people unfriendly example I know of,
especially the residential streets in the shadow of the raised roadways).

All it took was a look across the sea to the Netherlands we'd see integrated
bus/rail/tram terminals and some degree of planning and intelligence still
being applied to transport. We got to sit breathing traffic fumes.

That makes me think it was more about politics and policies than money.

------
jcoffland
The big mistake was in assuming a public transport system could be profitable.
Almost none are. Many of the best public transport systems in the world barely
scrape by and are continually at risk of collapse. The benefits to businesses,
improved mental health of passengers, reduction in pollution and traffic are
all external benefits to the community which are not accounted for in the
transportation systems budget. Some governments recognize this and so continue
to subsidize their transportation systems. Countries like the US which demand
that _everything_ be run like a corporation will continue to fail to realize
any benefit removed a step of two away from this quarter's profits.

~~~
randyrand
> The benefits to businesses,

Businesses, especially consumers, are helped more by the mobility of a car
than public transport

>improved mental health of passengers

1\. This is not an external benefit. This, if true, should mostly be reflected
in people's willingness to take public transport. Of course, people taking
public transport are in my experience usually of the most dubious mental
health. So that's concerning.

> reduction in pollution and traffic

Fair points.

Traffic is by far the best case for running public transit at a loss, IMO.
Though it must be weighed against spending that money on more freeways.

There are benefits, though not as many as you are listing, and we should be
weary of running them at too much of a deficit.

In general the idea of running things as a business is not to say they should
be run at a profit, it's to say they should be run efficiently like a free
competitive market typically does.

~~~
dionidium
_This is not an external benefit. This, if true, should mostly be reflected in
people 's willingness to take public transport. Of course, people taking
public transport are in my experience usually of the most dubious mental
health. So that's concerning._

What you'll find is that people use public transit in cities where its
convenience outweighs the convenience of a car. In cities where that is
untrue, only those who can't afford a car use public transit.

Which is to say that public transit isn't somehow magically better than auto
travel by virtue of some fixed aspect of public transit.

It's better when it's better, which may sound like a tautology, but is
actually just kind of an obvious truth, evidence for which is available all
over the world.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not sure it's _just_ convenience but rather some combination of
convenience, cost, and just preference. But your basic point stands. The vast
majority of people will use public transit when it works better for them
personally given their other options on a given day. This tends to most
commonly occur in cities that have relatively good transit systems (for the
trip in question) and congestion that makes the same trip by car relatively
unpleasant/slow.

------
bkeroack
The loss of the Pacific Electric system was tragic. LA is currently spending
many billions to re-build what was lost, but we're doing a good job so far:

\- The Expo light rail line is scheduled to open 5/20\. This is the first rail
line to go from downtown to the ocean since Pacific Electric.

\- The Purple line (HRT)--formerly the "subway to the sea" until budget cuts
caused it to be trucated to West LA--is the first east/west fully-underground
subway to go from downtown to the west side.

\- Metro's R2 plan[1] will invest $120B to construct new rail lines such as
the Sepulveda Pass tunnel (bypass the infamous 405 freeway), West Hollywood
light rail (one of the most walkable, transit-friendly areas in greater LA),
direct rail access to LAX and more.

It's an exciting time to be an Angeleno. I have no doubt that--if these
projects aren't cancelled--it will be transformational for our city.

1\. [http://thesource.metro.net/2016/03/18/metros-bold-plan-to-
tr...](http://thesource.metro.net/2016/03/18/metros-bold-plan-to-transform-
transportation/)

------
Sniffnoy
One factor that this article doesn't mention is that many streetcar companies
were locked into contracts that prevented them from raising fares above 5¢.
National City Lines didn't come in until well after problems had already
started. (Pulling that from here:
[http://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-
demise](http://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise) )

~~~
SilasX
Was it physically easy to raise prices by a penny?

IIRC, there was an account of an issue with Coca-Cola's vending machines and
them not wanting to raise prices and finding all kinds of convoluted
workarounds, including asking the treasury to issue a 7.5 cent coin.

~~~
astrodust
There are Coke signs attached to buildings that to this day advertise 5 cent
cola.

------
galaxyLogic
Recently Paul Krugman in NY Times made an insightful point I think: The most
efficient transportation system in the world, is the ELEVATOR.

So just build taller buildings in a small area like Manhattan, there is plenty
of space up there, it is cheaper that way and no need for roads and
automobiles to move from one floor to another.

Living in a city is more humanistic anyway because there are more humans
around you. There is no reason not to grow food in the sky-scrapers too. The
only reason it is not done more is the zoning laws, which should be changed.

~~~
potatolicious
We tried this - most urban centers in America are designed around elevators
(and little else), and they've largely been failures that have been defined by
blight, decay, and crime.

"Just build tall buildings" is a necessary but insufficient condition for an
effective city. Manhattan works not just because it builds up (in fact many
parts of it are limited to 6-story buildings) but because it has mastered the
complexities of creating livable, workable spaces.

The other downtowns across America saw Manhattan, and took only "build tall
buildings" away as a lesson, and they are for the most part deserted, ill-
occupied spaces. Simple density and height is not the most important factor -
it's not even among the top-10. "Manhattanization" became a dirty word across
the country not because Manhattan is bad, but because so many places copied it
thoughtlessly and incompetently.

A study of what makes New York City tick that examines Midtown over long-
standing neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, and even
more outlying ones like Harlem and Washington Heights, is doomed to fail,
because you're seeing a complex, functional city and the only lesson you're
seemingly taking away is "density = good", despite nearly every other urban
center in the US being evidence otherwise.

tl;dr: Density is a necessary component of a functional city, but you don't
need Midtown Manhattan-level density, and having density is not enough. High-
density failed urban spaces are a dime a dozen.

[edit] Side note: elevators _aren 't_ actually very efficient at high density.
They are _great_ for low-mid buildings because they add a lot of floor area
and don't occupy much space themselves.

For very tall skyscrapers it inverts - the number of elevators needed to
properly serve the building starts increasing dramatically, eating up valuable
floor space. There is a level at which you _lose overall floor space_ for each
floor you add to the building.

Some of the supertall skyscrapers currently in existence/being built are in
fact taller than they economically should be - and this is subsidized by
pride, ego, government, rich benefactors, or some combination of the above.

Tall skyscrapers make all kinds of optimizations to minimize this -
destination-based elevators (where you punch in your destination before
getting in) are popular, as are express elevators segmenting certain floors,
but all of these grant modest gains in elevator capacity at best, and in
modern times skyscraper heights are limited not by materials or architectural
engineering but by this function of elevators vs. floor space.

~~~
crzwdjk
It doesn't help that most cities outside Manhattan have parking requirements
and often quite high ones, to the point where the parking for an office
building takes up as much floor space as the offices themselves. And since
elevators can't really transport cars very efficiently, your 100 story
building will need to be surrounded by 10 10-story parking garages (or, more
typically, you'll have a 30 story building with lots of surface parking
around). If you factor in all the surface parking, you don't end up with very
much density in the end.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" If you factor in all the surface parking, you don't end up with very much
> density in the end."_

More important than the reduction in density (which IMO for the most is not
actually particularly bad), is the disruption in the street graph that parking
lots represent.

Parking lots are awful places that are psychologically destructive on top of
being literally hazardous to pedestrians. A parking lot is a good way to make
sure you remove any trace of pedestrian travel in the area, and they represent
black holes in the street.

One thing I alluded to in the earlier post is that _graph connectivity_ is
tremendously more important than density. If the street graph is disconnected
(or just too difficult or hazardous to traverse), people will stop doing so,
and there goes your urban life.

Small American towns (that resisted the suburban blight of the 50s) have very
low density but manage to be extremely livable and functional by virtue of
being well connected. Density is truly a red herring - livable, walkable
spaces can be created at most densities short of completely rural.

Some New Urbanist developments have moved towards a model where the buildings
directly face the street with parking lot "courtyards" in the middle - this
model works. It's still heavily dependent on car culture, which is
unfortunate, but is tremendous more functional than the suburban American
status quo that is the opposite arrangement, where parking lots face streets
and there might as well be a cavernous canyon between the sidewalk and the
building (if there even is a sidewalk).

~~~
crzwdjk
Absolutely. One thing that I've noticed personally (and that studies confirm)
is that the distance I am willing to walk depends a great deal on what walking
is like: whether it's interesting, safe, etc. Parking lots are thus a double
whammy, because the both push actual destinations apart, and reduce the
distance that people are willing to walk. And if nobody's walking anywhere
anyway, why bother building tall buildings in expensive city centers instead
of cheaper ones in suburban office parks?

Since you mention New Urbanism, have you heard of the Old Urbanist movement?
New Urbanism is an attempt to return to 19th century American patterns, while
the Old Urbanists advocate going back to an even older pattern of low-rise and
mid-rise buildings on really narrow streets, which is a pattern that has
worked well for millenia, and indeed still works well in places like Japan.
The narrower streets mean there can be more of them for the same usage of land
area, which can mean a much better connected network at a pedestrian scale.

------
neves
I've just (re)watched with my sons the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the end, the detective said the villain must be a cartoon, because just a
cartoon would have the stupid idea of replacing the efficient and cheap L.A.
public transport system, and to build highways.

------
cornchips
lol.. missed a link?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy)

------
joshuaheard
Modern urban planners can take a lesson from this. People abandoned light rail
in Los Angeles because they preferred their cars. A car provides anytime,
anywhere, personal door-to-door transportation versus the fixed-time, fixed-
place, mass transit system that only takes you part way like fixed rail. Light
rail will die a similar death in U.S. cities, especially when self-driving
cars decrease traffic by a significant amount in the near future.

~~~
maxxxxx
I am not sure self-driving cars will reduce traffic. My expectation is that
they will increase traffic. By a lot probably. And commutes will get even
longer.

~~~
choward
You're assuming car ownership will remain in place as it is now. If vehicles
are shared instead of fully owned, you can be more efficient. Think of how
many trips are simply transporting a car. For example, let's say I need to
pick up a friend from the airport. I would waste a one-way trip going to the
airport. I didn't need to go to the airport. The only reason it was necessary
for me to go is that I needed to get a car to my friend.

If my fried could have just summoned the nearest self driving car, an entire
one way trip wouldn't ever occurred.

~~~
maxxxxx
If it becomes popular to share cars then this may work. Looking at reality I
have my doubts though. If people wanted to share cars you would see neighbors
sharing cars for example. In the US many families or friends not even share
cars. When I go out with people it ends up with seven people going in 4 cars
or similar.

A self driving car takes the pain out of driving so unless society changes a
lot we will see more cars driving around (often empty) and people will have
longer commutes while sleeping their car.

~~~
biomcgary
Sharing a vehicle is not fun when the other driver could: 1. wreck it, 2. not
return it promptly, 3. trash it. A self-driving car solves problem 1,
partially solves 2, and does nothing for 3.

~~~
maxxxxx
I guess a self driving shared car needs also to be self cleaning. that may
work.

~~~
yourapostasy
Put together a amalgam self-driving Sanisette [1] and you implement an even
more ridiculous aspect of _Idiocracy_ than its La-Z-Boy with a built-in toilet
[2]. And while I make a joke about it now, someones in the future are going to
convince a line of VCs to incrementally enable people eventually
gaming/Facebooking in VR while hurtling down the freeway doing Number Two, and
get handsome exits on each step towards that, and it will all be counted as a
net economic benefit in the end. I'm either kidding, or will have checked out
well before that ever becomes mainstream.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette)

[2] [http://www.eatmedaily.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/2009/...](http://www.eatmedaily.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/idiocracy-chair1.jpg)

