The Past Isn't the Answer to Urban Transport
Making sure we aren’t looking back at our historic public transit systems through rose-coloured glasses.
It’s a tale as old as time — North American transit advocates, upon seeing the extent of some grand historic transit system like the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles, become fixated on the transit networks of 100 years ago: “Look how far out the lines went, and they even had quad-tracked trams!” The same happens for what was once much more extensive passenger rail service. I can’t count the amount of times someone has told me about an old train line, and then remarked about how great it would be if we brought it back — even if it would be completely impractical.
It’s easy to look at a transit system that is undeniably more impressive in scope than the status quo and long for it. But in today's article, I want to warn people about the risks of nostalgia for past transit systems, where things could wrong, and the risks this poses today.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the often-brought-up purchasing of streetcar and other transit networks by oil and automotive interests for the purposes of driving car dependency.
This was a real issue from my understanding, but the extent to which streetcar, interurban, and other systems were bought up for the express purpose of getting rid of them is exaggerated. It’s easy to paint transit systems having been purchased by malevolent actors as being the primary reason for their decline, but that idea just doesn’t pass muster.
While the service levels and coverage of old transit systems are impressive, the reality is these same systems had a lot of major problems. As their acquisition makes clear, many of the systems we’re talking about were privately run, and they were in financial shambles. There were various reasons for this, and doubtless cars had an impact, but a lot of legacy transit systems simply weren’t developed for the age of mass motorization. When streetcars first entered the scene, your alternative was probably walking or maybe riding on horseback. This allowed entire massive systems to be built in such a way that they could compete with these modes of transportation. But, cars along with highways and sprawling suburbs simply presented a model that they could not easily adapt to or compete with. Streetcars were not designed to be fast, and this created a huge problem when cities started getting big.
The infrastructure also had a lot of problems. Since a lot of systems were funded privately, getting something quick and dirty built for a quick return was often a priority, but that often led to infrastructure that didn’t last. There was also little grade separation or other costly infrastructure solutions that would reduce long term operating costs — the type of thing a public transit agency would be more likely to invest in thanks to more long-term certainty. The need to reinvest in new and expanded infrastructure was a big part of why so many systems could not keep operating for the long-term.
The broader point here is that while we certainly did have some incredibly impressive transit networks in the past, their decline and eventual removal was just as much about their own increasing irrelevance as external factors. Ironically, the Toronto Streetcar network, one of the few systems that was saved, illustrates many of these points well, because so little has been done to improve it over the years. Streetcars are slow and unreliable because they are often in mixed traffic, and even when given dedicated lanes, poor infrastructure and operating practices keep transit running slowly and inconsistently.
On the other hand, there are some things we used to suck at that we’ve gotten much better at. For example, we now have accessible low-floor trams, and overhead wires have become a lot less messy than they once were. But, that’s all the more reason to not make the past our vision for the future!
I explored some of these ideas in my recent video on cut-and-cover subway construction. The idea I highlighted there was just because things used to be better for transit doesn’t mean that the reason things were better was a particular practice or way of doing things. People and policy design and build public transport, and when those people and policies are experienced and motivated, a lot is possible!
Of course, subways also used to be a lot worse than they are today. Many systems didn’t have level-boarding, weren’t accessible, and weren’t well-ventilated. Construction projects also frequently saw workers killed or permanently injured. Ultimately, I’m happy for us to seek the outcomes we once were able to deliver of cost-effective and functional public transportation, but the way we achieve things has generally changed for good reason!
And I’m not joking when I say people often talk about bringing back an almost identical service to one that previously existed.
In Metro Vancouver where I grew up, a group has long passionately advocated for bringing back the interurban rail line that used to tie the city together with towns, villages, and rural areas. However, this route appeared to fail in large part because not many people actually lived along it — and road-based transportation options have long provided far more direct routes. While the service might’ve made sense when people had no option but to walk an hour uphill each way to the small local station, current plans need to adapt to current conditions. Bringing back a rail line that would avoid most of our modern settlements while also being slower and less frequent seems like a very bad prioritization.
Where I see this transit nostalgia getting us into the most trouble is the direct translation of a past solution onto present problems. I’ve already mentioned a lot of issues with the old streetcar networks of North America above, but these were issues when the systems were shut down — and far more would be present today. Of course, some of the problems faced, such as, say, poor accessibility, are solvable today, although many would debate the extent to which modern tramways are accessible (for example, many modern American light rail networks do not have all-door level boarding!) But many others, like network structure, service speed, and operations, could easily be just as large if not larger problems today!
I think the reason this nostalgia is so tempting is that people yearn for a time when their society, and maybe their hometown, was actually good at these things — at least relative to the present. But again, I’m okay with people yearning for better transit, provision and service — I think the problems come from people not being able to identify that that is what they want, and instead landing on the most visual/tangible element of the past.
Instead of asking what solutions we went to in the past, I would love to see a world where advocates more universally look to the best solutions available today. I don’t really feel one way or the other about any given city developing a tram network — but, if you’re going to, the place to look isn’t 1900s Los Angeles, it’s 2020s Paris!
And that’s really at the centre of what I do, highlighting the bright spots in transit around the world, so that we can all learn from the best.
the theory I've always heard about why so many street railway systems closed in the 50's and 60's was related to maintenance deferral as a result of ww2 leading to may systems having huge maintenance backlogs so that when transit was passed into public ownership the improvements to diesel busses that could use the same road infastructure as cars meant those were easier to justify. And while this is almost certainly not the main factor it combined with other things mentioned in both the article and other comments had to have played a part.
As a Boston resident, I am reminded of the fact that our streetcar network survived (as the green line) in exactly the places where it has its own right of way. There is only one exception, and it's for a few blocks to serve a VA hospital. Even though the green line is slow and gets stuck at traffic lights, the ability to jump the queue was useful enough for it to survive.