FALL 2009 ISSUE

It is one of the great ironies of American life that suburban sprawl, a low-density pattern of development that is difficult to serve with public transit, was created by public transit.  Frank J. Sprague created the first successful electric streetcar in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888.  Land developers rushed to build streetcar lines, loss leaders for the highly profitable residential development built along them.

Having been largely obliterated as a means of mass transportation after WWII, streetcars as they have been reconstituted are nowhere and never the one thing they were between 1890 and 1920: the dominant form of mechanized urban transport.  What they are now exactly is hard to accurately define, but this issue of Trip Planner Magazine takes on this question as well as the little-known history of the streetcar and its rebirth, the coming wireless revolution in streetcar, the odd tale of the Girard Ave line in Philly, and much more.

Previous Issues

SUMMER 2009 ISSUE Transit Tips: Simple Schedule

FALL 2008 ISSUE