Who Tore Up the Tracks? · Episode 5 of 24 · 22 min
Pulling the Plug: The Quiet Killers
Before anyone conspired against the streetcar, a frozen five-cent fare, the Depression, and deferred maintenance had weakened it. Then the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, aimed at abusive utility trusts, forced power companies to shed their transit lines and cut off the cross-subsidy. Replacing rail with buses became arithmetic, and transit was collateral damage from a reform aimed at someone else.
Who's who
- Samuel InsullChicago utility magnate whose 1932 collapse fueled the holding-company law
- Franklin D. Roosevelt+28 more episodesPresident who signed the Public Utility Holding Company Act in 1935
- Burton K. Wheeler+1 more episodeSenator, co-sponsor of the 1935 act
- Sam Rayburn+2 more episodesRepresentative, co-sponsor of the 1935 act
- Thomas Conway Jr.Transit executive who led the committee that produced the PCC streetcar
- C. F. HirshfeldChief engineer of the PCC car research program
- Woodrow Wilson+9 more episodesPresident whose 1919 commission found the industry without financial credit
Where it happens
- San Antonio, Texas+1 more episodeEarly large city to convert entirely to buses
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania+4 more episodesFirst production PCC car entered service in 1936
- Brooklyn, New YorkBrooklyn & Queens Transit ran PCC cars from October 1936
Timeline
- 1920Federal commission reports streetcar industry is without financial credit
- 1932Insull's Middle West Utilities collapses
- 1933Transit ridership bottoms out about a third below its 1926 peak
- August 1935Roosevelt signs the Public Utility Holding Company Act
- August 1936Pittsburgh Railways puts the first production PCC car in service
- 1938SEC begins enforcing forced divestitures of street railways
Still debated
Historians disagree about how many systems the 1935 act doomed versus merely sped along, and which killer was primary: fare caps, the Depression, or cheaper buses. One economist argued the bus's cost advantage was smaller than conversion advocates claimed.
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