GEORGE A. GONZALEZ - fieldi

THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 63FIXED RAIL TRANSIT IN THE AGE OF THE AUTOMOBILEAs the automobile began to attain widespread usage, North American trolleysystems, for the most part, continued to atrophy. 5 Not surprisingly, the automobileworsened the economic position of trolley systems. It did so for twokey reasons. First, automobiles took away much needed patronage from trolleylines. Weekend traffic to parks and other recreational venues, forinstance, was a substantial source of revenue for trolley firms. Automobilestook much of this traffic, as many purchased an automobile for recreationaloutings. Second, and more damaging for the trolley, automobiles createdmore congestion for rush hour trolley riders (Davis 1979; Foster 1981; Barrett1983; Bottles 1987; Fogelson 2001, chap. 2).In light of this congestion, the actions and inactions of local and stategovernments hastened the public’s dependence on the automobile and thedisappearance of the trolley. Government indirectly exacerbated traffic congestionduring the 1920s and 1930s by building networks of roads that couldaccommodate the automobile (McShane 1988; 1994; Preston 1991; Kay1998). In contrast, governments generally did not improve fixed-rail urbantransportation during this period (Foster 1981).Efforts during the early part of the twentieth century to subsidize trolleytransport, or to give it an advantage over the automobile through the publicfinancing of subways or elevated tracks, were in most instances bogged downin political controversy. A specific national trend was to view subsidized masstransit as an effort by downtown commercial interests to protect the downtownarea’s position as a center of commerce, during a period when the automobilewas making the decentralization of economic activity a reality.Indeed, many proposals that sought to build publicly subsidized subway systemswere designed to benefit downtown economic interests, and were politicallysupported by said interests (Cheape 1980; Foster 1981; Barrett 1983;Derrick 2001; Fogelson 2001). By the 1920s, landed interests in outlyingareas often took the lead in politically defeating what were held to be specialinterest endeavors. Proposed fixed-rail plans that were designed to provideand/or ensure comprehensive citywide service through the usage of publicdollars had little political viability during this period (Foster 1981; Barrett1983; Fogelson 2001, chap. 2). As a result of the political opposition generatedby proposals to utilize public funds to improve U.S. trolley systems, historianRobert M. Fogelson (2001) describes how such improvements generallyfailed to materialize in the United States despite the increasing trafficcongestion of urban settings:By the late 1920s, after more than two decades of vigorous efforts, after thepreparation of scores of studies and reports, after the expenditures of millionsof dollars, and after a host of predictions that most big cities would soon builda rapid transit system, nearly 90 percent of the els, close to half of which had