Rails were put down in American cities’ streets in the 19th century because it made it easier for the horses to pull the cars. In the early 20th century diesel engines, balloon tires and automatic transmissions made it possible to replace those streetcars with a cheaper to operate alternative; the bus.

And beginning in the 1920s that’s what started happening. A superior technology replaced an inferior one. Elementary economics.

The anti-trust case was something of a joke. In 1937 National City Lines, who’d been buying buses from GM and several other companies, got the idea that they could get money to expand from their suppliers. They talked GM, Firestone, Standard and Phillips to invest (and offer favorable credit) in NCL, in return for NCL agreeing to buy 85% of their supplies from those investors.

That’s what the anti-trust verdict hinged on. There was no conspiracy to destroy streetcars. Here’s a pretty good history of what happened:

http://www.lava.net/cslater/TQOrigin.pdf

I dig them, but we can’t afford them like we used to in the US. They’re well over 8-10x as much money that it used to cost society to build the tracks and get the cars compared in inflation based dollars.

With the further bankruptcy of the United States Government we’re not getting any closer to being able to have Government built streetcar system everywhere.

We might though, be saved by business and individual interest in them. But that still begs the question…

How will we pay for them? No matter how much you act the part of the beggar and demand that transit be free, someone, somewhere has to pay for it. NOTHING is free.