This photograph depicts the interior of a New Orleans street car during segregation. These same conductors were responsible for enforcing segregated compartments on the streetcar. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Louis Armstrong and many other black children were first made aware of race segregation while riding a streetcar. During World War II, the influx of soldiers and others from outside the South caused many confrontations, some of them violent.
Nobody ever got hit over the head with one or anything like that. They were never a problem. Everyday we were hit over the head with this reality—that we had a place that we could not go beyond. Jazz historians acknowledge that streetcars allowed New Orleans musicians from all areas of the city to hear and play with one another in downtown.
Internationally renowned musicians were featured at West End and, for the cost of a ride, musicians and other New Orleanians were exposed to novel musical styles. During the streetcar strike, the Martin Brothers gave free sandwiches to their former union brothers. At about the same time, the Martins worked with their baker, John Gendusa, to develop a longer and narrower loaf of French bread specifically for sandwiches.
While living on St. More than 90 years old, the St. Department of the Interior. The Regional Transit Authority artisans and maintenance crews are ensuring that they continue to run. Most other cities keep light rail cars and vintage streetcars separate from one another, but these craftsmen allowed the return of the Canal Street streetcar line in to reflect much of the ambiance of the St.
Charles line. Their ability to fashion replicas of the familiar Perley Thomas cars kept modern, boxy-looking light rail vehicles from appearing on Canal Street.
Federal regulations such as wheelchair accessibility was satisfied, but the familiar s design complements the utility of a major rail transit line. Examining New Orleans streetcar heritage reveals that much of its unique culture was knitted together across time and space by the network of streetcar lines.
Michael Mizell-Nelson, Ph. It was produced by Mizell-Nelson and directed by Matt Martinez. They used it into the s. In this photograph documenting its first day, people are gathered on New York Avenue, near the end of the line at Mount Vernon Square.
Streetcars were heavily used, and passengers often found them crowded and uncomfortable. This sheet music—one of the many songs about streetcars that entered the popular culture of the time—shows the cramped conditions aboard a trolley. Grandfather and grandson raise a fence in the mostly undeveloped suburb of Columbia Heights, about Trolley passing a real-estate billboard on a developing section of Connecticut Avenue, about To get potential buyers to Chevy Chase, the development company extended Connecticut Avenue and built bridges, an electric streetcar line, and an amusement park.
In , a streetcar ride from Chevy Chase to downtown Washington took 35 minutes. In the early s, streetcars and electric interurban systems helped fill the nation's transportation needs. By , there were 45, miles of transit track in the country, and millions of streetcar riders. But over the next few decades, the limitations of streetcar systems, government and corporate policies and actions, consumer choice, and the development of alternatives—especially the bus and the car—helped make trolleys obsolete.
Buses started to replace trolleys in the s. Many commuters considered buses a modern, comfortable, even luxurious replacement for rickety, uncomfortable trolleys. Buses made business sense for transit companies; they were more flexible and cheaper to run than streetcars. In a few cities, auto and auto-supply companies, including General Motors, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and Standard Oil of California, bought an interest in transit companies and encouraged the conversion from streetcar to bus.
But many cities made the choice to switch without this influence, and by , 50 percent of the U. Most importantly, Americans chose another alternative—the automobile. Cars became the commuter option of choice for the growing number of people who could them. In Washington, D. But as in most cities, the majority of D. Skip to main content. Search this exhibition. A Streetcar City. The Altograph of Washington City, James T.
American cities in the 19th century were walking cities—most residents worked and shopped close to where they lived. But as electric streetcar trolley systems were built in the s, s, and early s, cities expanded. Many white city dwellers moved to new trolley suburbs; streetcars made it easy to travel greater distances to work, shop, and socialize in town. In Washington, streetcars turned outlying areas into new neighborhoods.
Real estate developers often built streetcar lines to promote new suburban communities. Their success in selling the suburbs to middle-class workers changed neighborhood life and the rhythms of the city. There, shoppers could find produce and meat from regional farms, fruits and vegetables from across the country, as well as a few products—such as bananas—from overseas.
Like many big cities, Washington, D. Located at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N. City of Washington. The approximately dealers who rented space on the ground floor of the Center Market sold both local produce and foods from around the region, the nation, and the world.
With the growth of railroads and commercial farming, more and more people were able to buy oranges, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables that were previously unavailable or too expensive. Center Market opened early in the morning and usually closed by mid-afternoon, except on Saturday, when it was open all day. That said, for lower operating costs to offset the high upfront costs could take a very long time given the high price of streetcar construction.
In addition, advocates argue that streetcar vehicles don't usually have to be replaced as often as buses. A study from the Federal Transit Administration found that large buses have a minimum useful life of 12 years, noting that many city transit authorities move to retire these buses after that period, rather than stretching out the buses' lives. United Streetcar, an Oregon company that builds the vehicles, says the cars last 30 years.
And if a streetcar is given its own dedicated lane, it can go faster than traffic though it still has to deal with streetlights Advocates also say that streetcars confer all sorts of other benefits, like being environmentally friendly, giving cities a "sense of place," and boosting economic development. Cities have a few ways of funding streetcars. One is government. They can get money from local, state, or federal government, as well as local businesses or other sources though state funding is rare.
Local funding can come from a variety of places: raising taxes, selling bonds, or adding surcharges on to things like car registrations. Federal funding often comes from competitive grants, with cities applying to the Department of Transportation and vying with each other for precious funds.
The mix of funding varies widely from city to city. The rest will come from a variety of sources, including local taxes, private sources, and selling land. The bulk of one Seattle streetcar line, meanwhile, came from a business improvement district — a group of businesses that pay higher taxes in order to raise money for particular projects like streetcars. The fact that streetcars are typically financed in part through special revenue measures that may not have been available for bus projects helps explain why this more expensive option is sometimes preferred over a thriftier bus.
Advocates have a whole list of arguments for why cities should build streetcar lines. Here are a few of them.
He adds that tourists prefer streetcars to buses because streetcars tend to be less intimidating and more understandable for a newcomer. They attract more riders than a comparable bus line," he says.
Portland is one example of this: Bus lines near the streetcar line saw ridership drop by 20 percent, and the streetcar's ridership more than made up for it, Politifact reports. It's hard to find hard evidence on this, as the Atlantic Cities noted last year, but advocates argue that putting in a streetcar draws economic development because streetcars are more permanent than a new bus line: Once the track is laid, it's not going anywhere.
Tucson has reported similarly booming development. Streetcars are electric, and many buses still operate on diesel or gasoline. For cities trying to go green, this can make a streetcar line look attractive. Then again, the question is what you're comparing streetcars to. After all, buses are already a green alternative to cars think one bus carrying 20 people versus 20 cars carrying 20 people. The Department of Transportation under President Obama changed the formula for how funds for different projects are allocated.
Rather than focus purely on cost-effectiveness, says a department spokesperson, the DOT has been focusing on other factors, like boosting economic development.
Though the new DOT focus has given a boost to streetcars, it's important to recognize that this money never funds a streetcar fully, says one expert. Cities appreciate the investments and say that Washington has seen the light when it comes to transit. Buying a regular city bus means, well, just buying a regular city bus and putting it into service. Starting a streetcar line means all sorts of building, like tracks and stations. Yes, it's expensive , but those expenses can create local jobs, not to mention earn political support from labor groups and contracting firms.
One other common argument is that streetcars just add a special something to a neighborhood. And that's part of what streetcars are," says Guzzetti. While there's no way of really knowing, one thing that bodes well for streetcars is the overall growth in public transit usage. In , US public transit had its highest ridership since , according to the American Public Transportation Association.
But since then, public transit ridership has climbed considerably, meaning a growing potential customer base for streetcars. In addition, streetcars are built specifically to not be fads. Putting rails in roadways takes time and effort and money, and they're hard to get out.
This is one of the streetcar's advantages relative to a bus, advocates say, as it signals to businesses that they'll want to build along a transit line that will be around for years to come. However, given some of streetcars' weaknesses as a transportation method — they're not terribly fast, they have to navigate traffic — and the growth in the use of public transit, it's possible that cities that build the systems will one day wish they had gone for either costlier grade-separated light rail or cheaper and more practical buses.
The American Public Transportation Association has a site where it keeps all sorts of information on modern streetcars and heritage trolleys.
There are also many good public transit-focused blogs out there. Human Transit and the Transport Politic are two good ones. In addition, the Atlantic Cities — while covering all sorts of urban planning-related news — often writes thoughtful articles on transportation policy. Many cities that have a streetcar under consideration or under construction also have blogs or sites dedicated to those streetcars where progress updates are posted.
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