In case you didn’t know, I’m ancient. Born in 1934, which to most means I am a decrepit old man, who has lost his sense, and is ready to be put out to pasture. Not true with me. My old age, allows me to remember things so long past, that youth usually doesn’t even know about what I am speaking. Nevertheless, on occasion, I may resort to my old age and memories to show just how much better in some ways, things were decades ago. For a starter, let’s take transportation. Big city transportation as a beginning.
As a kid, the Mt. Pleasant streetcar line ran past my Dad’s drugstore at Mt. Pleasant and Irving Sts. N.W. in Washington D.C. There were no old fashioned noisy, ancient streetcars, such as now run in New Orleans on the St. Charles line, and which has become one of the main tourist attractions in New Orleans. New Orleans has rebuilt many of its old, scrapped lines, with new rail, and built new, old style cars which are silent, and air conditioned, but tourists still flock to the old cars. No, In Washington D.C., all the streetcars were modern, silent, ’PCC’ types. There were no overhead wires, as is customary with most other streetcar lines. By an act of Congress, all D.C. streetcars had to be gotten rid of by 1962. Typical Congressional nonsense, and they want to run health care? I have slides I took in 1963, of workers cutting up virtually brand new, state of the art silent, streamlined PCC streetcars with acetylene torches. Google “pcc streetcars” for knowledge and photos of these superb means of transport.
Other cities abandoned their lines, tore up the tracks, and substituted smelly busses. Ridership instantly declined, and has never recovered. Why? People would have rather ridden a smooth riding, quiet, streetcar than ride on a bumpy, noisy, diesel bus, plus a subliminal knowledge that the streetcar can only run on its tracks, and not go someplace unknown or at random. The bus generation would save the inner cities! Denver’s cars ran for the last time in the early 1950’s, Baltimore in the early 1960’s as was the fate of Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, and a dozen other major cities’ rail transit systems. The abandonments were partially caused by a little known corporation known as National City Lines which bought up systems, deliberately scrapped rail lines, and substituted the busses they made, and which ran on the fuel they provided.
Southern California is classic. Pacific Electric limes ran 6200 electric trains on 1061 miles of track, which tracks were torn up and freeways built in exactly the same footprint, only with 10 lanes or more, as opposed to double track, requiring 100 feet of width. Smog resulted, and enormous gas consumption. America burned 183 million gallons of gasoline last year, mostly on freeways built after silent, clean rail lines were ripped up, and traffic lanes substituted. As the suburbs expanded, more lanes of highways were built, rather than more lines of electric rail lines, and more smog and oil consumption. The more freeways built, more cars were bought, more fuel used, the worse the air became, and snarled traffic jams and frayed tempers occur millions of times a day. A brand new, electric light rail line can be built for a million dollars a mile. Try building a multiple lane freeway for that, which is what a double track rail line can carry, with no noise or pollution.
Cities became noisy and smelly with roaring busses everywhere, and America no longer had convenient electric rail transport. Well, guess what? After scrapping all the lines, and tearing up the tracks, most major cities are rebuilding the lines, calling them “light rail.” I recently rode Portland Oregon’s light rail, and it is splendid. One line runs new, exact replicas, of the cars that were demolished 50 years ago, and carries passengers exactly like the demolished cars did 50 years ago. Many cities are re-building long abandoned streetcar lines. Major cities, such as Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and others have spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to replicate what was demolished 50 years ago.
What has been accomplished? Dollar depreciation, caused by government financed new light rail. Torn up streets and congestion caused by new installation of what should have never been removed 50 years ago. Endless freeways, pollution, bumper to bumper parking lots, and dependence on foreign oil continue. It’s difficult to break a habit that one has had for a lifetime, such as driving on freeways, no matter how slow and tiresome. The new ’light rail’ has taken a lot of traffic off of freeways, but the freeways should have never been built in the first place. Next, we’ll look at the highways in ’days of yore.’