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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (150803)	9/3/2002 1:50:13 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1586096

Ted the companies would not have been able to buy up the trolly lines if trollies provided a significant portion of intra city transportaion with a decent margin. They would have been to expensive. To the extent that they did buy up lines the real reason they where able to and thus overall a bigger reason behind the decline of the trollies was "Furthermore, local governments were becoming increasingly hostile to trolley operators. Track repairs were often hindered by demands on transit companies to also repair adjoining streets; simultaneously, municipalities made additional claims on their revenues. In New York the nickel fare was mandated despite inflationary trends, making once profitable trolley lines (and subway and elevated lines) into money losing propositions. " That's right between GM and the short sightedness of cities, the trolley and street car went the way of the dinosaur in most US cities. There were notable exceptions like SF which had more foresight.........and in Europe. But to conclude that it was inevitable because people were stupid is nearly as stupid. In addition the above does not change the fact that GM through a partnership [how clever of them] bought up these companies on the cheap and then dismantled them with the intent on selling more buses and cars. It was a crime and has put our intraurban transit systems fifty years behind comparable cities in Europe. Also if trollies made such obvious sense that the only reason they went away was because some one bought them up then they would have come back eventually. If they where the most efficent way to meet the need they only wouldn't come back due to political opposition and I don't see too much political opposition to them. They are coming back in the form of light rail. Cars or even busses are more flexible and most people like the flexibility. Their flexibility has been negated by grid lock. Fixed rail is able to move at faster speeds that either buses and cars since their rights of way stay clear even during rush hour. And where there are substantive systems in place like Portland, OR and San Diego, transit ridership is on the increase. Even in places like LA where overall transit ridership is down, light rail ridership is growing. ted