Most of the Midwest had walkable cities until the Civil Rights movement made like 70% of the white folk flee to the suburbs creating the car hell we have today.
They didn't need to expand it. Before 1950 basically every mid-sized city had a proper street car system that went everywhere. The attempts in the 1970s were a typical American clusterfuck where we attempt to rebuild something nice we used to have but in a way that's profitable which ruins what made it nice in the first place.
For reference, Cincinnati regularly had over 100 million riders a year pre-1950. It's hard to fathom how much "they took from you".
Most of the Midwest had walkable cities until the Civil Rights movement made like 70% of the white folk flee to the suburbs creating the car hell we have today.
Tbf they started ripping up the streetcar lines 5-10 years before white flight really got going.
Yeah, but they never expanded it back like in many coastal cities.
Cincinnati and North Kentucky bought 30 miles of land to build light rail on in the 1970's and today has only 4 miles of streetcar.
https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/streetcar/how-to-ride/route-and-station-stops/
They didn't need to expand it. Before 1950 basically every mid-sized city had a proper street car system that went everywhere. The attempts in the 1970s were a typical American clusterfuck where we attempt to rebuild something nice we used to have but in a way that's profitable which ruins what made it nice in the first place.
For reference, Cincinnati regularly had over 100 million riders a year pre-1950. It's hard to fathom how much "they took from you".
:pain:
Tbf they had over half a million people in the 1940s, that's only 3-4 trips a week per person.
No, they did need to expand it to include the suburbs.
:no-gru:
Fuck the suburbs