The article mentions the old chestnut „but due to preference given to automobiles“ without further explaining what that actually means. Since there’s no need to. We’re all very well aware how to fill out the blanks in our minds: cars are bad, car manufacturers are evil, they did this to us, only government intervention can save us.
yet, what this historiography conveniently omits is that it was the glorious government intervention that strangled the often privately owned interurban/tram/train companies out of business due to massive amounts of roads being built under public works programs that were all too common from the 1920s-1940s.
As the article mentions later:
automobile doomed the interurban whose private, tax-paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist.
that provision had many names, one was “New Deal”
I don’t have a solution but two observations:
1) somehow in Asia never happened what happened in the West, that is, private transportation companies are still private, they prosper, and the societies excel at mobility.
2) Never ever destroy built infrastructure. Always plan for the possibility for a comeback. Post-war, many cities removed tram tracks. But even a rusty tram track is cheaper to repair 70 years later than, paying upfront for the dismantling and 70 years later for a complete new construction.
The New Deal built roads but they weren't particularly good quality ones, certainly not the mega-highways that became the Interstate system. Compare that to, say, Japan where the Shuto Expressway mostly has a speed limit of 60km/h (37mph).
Really what killed the rail system was the concept of free highway travel. Private companies will never be able to compete with free, government subsidized travel. It so thoroughly killed private companies that they couldn't even afford to really downsize and salvage what was left of their passenger operations. By comparison you have to pay for highway travel in Japan and China and Korea.
There are real costs to retaining disused tram tracks. In Boston, the MBTA Green line E branch tracks were left in place for decades after service was discontinued, no doubt increasing costs every time they had to pave around them or do utility maintenance below them.
In Somerville, the Somerville Community Path was a disused heavy rail right-of-way when I first visited in 2002 or 2003. Ripping up the tracks and putting in the community path improved walkability to a Red Line station (Davis) and creating a nice space for recreational walking and cycling.
There are real trade offs to leaving disused infrastructure in place. Not losing a continuous right-of-way is a huge upside, but there are definitely downsides too.
I really like your point #2. A little bit of me dies every time I see a rail-to-trail project. Granted, many (most? all?) of those lines have approximately a 0% chance of ever being economic again, but there’s also rail-centered redevelopment that’s being permanently foreclosed.
Over the longer haul, 99% of the potential infrastructure value of the "destroyed" rail line is in the unified right of way ownership. Rails rust (or are sold for scrap, legally or not), ties rot, ballast (gravel) becomes choked with dirt, brush, and trees, and bridges and viaducts crumble. So long as the rail-to-trail project doesn't erect a too-high legal barrier to eventual higher-value uses, it's actually a best case scenario.
In Asia rail companies are also real estate investors. They invest in property around the stations and capture a lot more of the value that a rail line brings to the neighbourhood. I believe America had a similar thing with rail towns.
Where I am from in Europe, the rise in property value thanks to rail lines is captured by lucky property owners. That is why as a free market guy I support subsidising rail and other public transport with taxes, if we don't have the Asian system.
>Where I am from in Europe, the rise in property value thanks to rail lines is captured by lucky property owners.
Sure, "lucky". Lucky as in, I'm well connected and I hear in advance from the politicians where the transit lines will be so I make sure to buy properties/land in those areas, so later I turn out to be really lucky when the government projects just happen to cross over my private land/property.
Funny how that kind of luck only turns out to favor the already wealthy and connected, 100% of the time, and never the poor. How do you call that type of luck?
Those private Asian companies make profit outside normal railway operations as well by running shops and building housing etc... literally milking as much as they can from their passengers.
Tram tracks are a triping and cycling hazard. Leaving unused, presumably unmaintained tracks in your city for 70 years just in case has a cost.
Keeping unused right of ways open is challenging too. Adjacent properties will tend to encroach, and depending on specifics and local rules, may be able to claim the encroached property through adverse possession.
yet, what this historiography conveniently omits is that it was the glorious government intervention that strangled the often privately owned interurban/tram/train companies out of business due to massive amounts of roads being built under public works programs that were all too common from the 1920s-1940s.
As the article mentions later:
automobile doomed the interurban whose private, tax-paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist.
that provision had many names, one was “New Deal”
I don’t have a solution but two observations:
1) somehow in Asia never happened what happened in the West, that is, private transportation companies are still private, they prosper, and the societies excel at mobility.
2) Never ever destroy built infrastructure. Always plan for the possibility for a comeback. Post-war, many cities removed tram tracks. But even a rusty tram track is cheaper to repair 70 years later than, paying upfront for the dismantling and 70 years later for a complete new construction.