Well, it’s more like the model was unsustainable. The trolley system was originally built by neighborhood builders as a neighborhood amenity to attract buyers. When the neighborhood was all sold up, the builder would hand the system over to the city, who would then fund the maintenance of the system via ? which was fine and dandy for a while because rail infra doesn’t need half the maintenance asphalt does, but once you had enough of these lines aging out and piling up maintenance issues all at once and the city having done almost no planning to fund said maintenance, the cities would reliably just say “fuck it, let people drive” rather than try pulling teeth via passing a tax or something. From here in 2025, I’m ready to send a terminator back in time at them over it, but I can see how they arrived there in the context of their time.
The trolley system in early 20th century US cities died due to issues related to privatization. It’s been done; doesn’t work.
Well, it’s more like the model was unsustainable. The trolley system was originally built by neighborhood builders as a neighborhood amenity to attract buyers. When the neighborhood was all sold up, the builder would hand the system over to the city, who would then fund the maintenance of the system via ? which was fine and dandy for a while because rail infra doesn’t need half the maintenance asphalt does, but once you had enough of these lines aging out and piling up maintenance issues all at once and the city having done almost no planning to fund said maintenance, the cities would reliably just say “fuck it, let people drive” rather than try pulling teeth via passing a tax or something. From here in 2025, I’m ready to send a terminator back in time at them over it, but I can see how they arrived there in the context of their time.