About GM/National City Lines and Streetcars
To attribute the decline of rail transit primarily the shenanigans of National City Lines/GM/Standard oil shenanigans is an overly simplistic analysis which overlooks other significant factors:
1) Most urban/interurban electric rail lines were financially marginal operations. The combination of the increasing popularity of the automobile and the Depression caused many companies to go out of business in the 1930s. Seattle's trolleys were gone by 1939.
2) Many electric rail companies were corporately affiliated with electric utilities which provided much of the funding for operations and capital improvements. In the mid-1930s, Congress passed legislation requiring electric utilities and rail lines to be separated, thus depriving the transit companies an important source of funding.
3. After World War II, city officials, businesses and many transit companies themselves considered trolleys to be outdated and buses to be modern transportation. Additionally, buses did not have the costs of track and overhead and were cheaper to operate than single-car trolleys.
4. Many rail lines were built more to promote real estate development than to provide transportation. When the developments were completed and automobiles became popular there was much less reason to have the rail line.
5. City traffic engineers also wanted trolleys out because they interfered with traffic flows.
