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View Full Version : Tucson mass transit has history of manipulation



nic34
10-21-2014, 04:07 PM
By Mary Beth Callie
Tucson Citizen
Wednesday, October 29, 2003



Critics of mass transit sometimes contend that buses and light rail should not be subsidized by taxpayers. If transit is such a good idea, it is argued, the private sector would find a way to pay for it, and to operate the system for profit. What they disregard, however, is one of the primary roles of government is to support – through subsidy or regulation – the basic infrastructure on which commercial and civic life depend.


For example, to ensure that citizens have reliable access to basic utility services, local governments issue franchises to private or municipal corporations. Beginning before the turn of the 20th century, most cities in the United States – including Tucson – granted franchise charters to mule-operated, and then electric, streetcar transit companies.


When the automobile was first introduced, many Americans considered it a nuisance. But, by the 1920s and '30s, the "good road" movement had resulted in the United States heavily subsidizing its automobile infrastructure and related industries by building roads.


The history of Tucson transit illustrates how our now car-centered culture is the direct result of those past investments and choices. In the mid-1920s, a 3-mile electric streetcar loop, operated by Tucson Rapid Transit Company (TRT), extended across the university and downtown area. In addition, TRT's bus line reached out to Campbell and Occidental Bus Company operated a competitive line in south Tucson. To some, TRT's buses and flexible routes seemed to usher in a new, modern era.


In 1930, TRT petitioned City Council for changes in its city franchise, to substitute buses for streetcars on its transit system.


For TRT, buses were more economical to operate, considering that they could be driven on roads paid for by the public; in contrast, to operate streetcars, the company had to pay the full cost of maintaining overhead power lines, tracks, and pavement. On Nov. 22,1930, the Tucson Daily Citizen editorialized that the time had rightly come for street cars to be "laid away in ceremonial lavender."


The Citizen reflected on how "one knew one's neighbor in those good old days. Any fresh abrasion or contusion, a new wrinkle or new patch of gray, stood out clearly at each morning's examination of neighbor by neighbor across the aisle."


But, streetcars, the Citizen wrote, were vestiges of the city's village phase, and that the prospects of a "track-bound tramway steadily shriveled" with the growth of Tucson and competition of automobiles.


This substitution of buses for streetcars can also be explained by a less known story. Although commonly referred to as the "child" of Tucson Gas, Electric Light and Power Company, TRT was controlled by Cities Service Company of New York (now Citgo). Throughout the 1920s, this holding company acquired countless oil fields and filling stations, and become one of the most consolidated American corporations.


In the context of City Services' expansion, TRT's petition takes on new significance: TRT's buses provided City Services with a predictable and expanding market for its oil supply. It was buses, not street cars, that depended on oil. That demand gave manufacturers strong incentives to modernize their buses, but not street cars.


What happened in Tucson foreshadowed a subsequent national pattern. In the 1930s -1950s, General Motors, along with leading oil and tire companies, bought out and dismantled successful street car systems throughout the country, and lobbied for National Highway legislation (see www.newday.com/guides/takenforarideSG.html). In the coming week, Access Tucson (M-F, 10 PM, Channel 74/ Cox and Comcast) will air the film documentary, "Taken for a Ride," which chronicles this story


http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_tuc003.htm

Whatever happened to these?

http://www.lightrailnow.org/images/phx-stc-hist-trf-peds_l-fleming.jpg

http://sustainablesavannah.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/streetcar.jpg

Peter1469
10-21-2014, 05:13 PM
Street cars are pretty cool. They still use them here in New Orleans.

Bob
10-21-2014, 05:39 PM
We had the noisy streetcars all over the SF Bay area at one time. SF still runs them.

Still, Government has proven it can't create or maintain such vehicles at reasonable prices. Costs to ride were once bone cheap yet they still were relegated to the departed idea.

Why is the question. My reply is the path is fixed. If the public a few miles away needs a ride, they must find some other path to the street car. Bus's ride on air tires. Steel wheels are not comfortable to the senses. BART in SF Bay area to solve that, welds the tracks and grinds them smooth and uses noise reducing wheels. Though it helps, BART is not nearly as quiet as the bus's are. Bus routes can be modified. Tracks not so much.

Captain Obvious
10-21-2014, 08:16 PM
Seattle's "SLUT" system is the shizzle.

http://www.ridetheslut.com/