Follow up: Dick Wolf Memorial Lecture on DC Streetcars

From email:

For those who were unable to attend, the slides from the Dick Wolf Lecture (Dismantling the Streetcar System, What have we learned?)  plus photos of the event are posted on the Capitol Hill Restoration Society website: 

-- 2019 Dick Wolf Memorial Lecture

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I didn't know what to expect from the lecture, because Dick Wolf was a vociferous opponent of the modern streetcar ("19th century technology"), but the presentation was awesome. John Hillegass had some interesting insights and approaches to the material.

He made the point that there weren't really measurable planning objectives set from making the decision to get rid of streetcars, that rather than recognize the problem was "too many cars", streetcars were blamed for congestion.

But I didn't remember/know that the streetcar system had been owned by a 1950s version of a vulture capitalist, who raised fares precipitously and refused to pay higher wages/negotiate with the transit workers union.

So in 1955, when the transit workers went out on strike, for seven weeks, for Congress that was a provocation to revoke the franchise -- but in large part it was seen as a way to come up with a solution and break the stalemate -- and find a new operator that would negotiate with workers.

But this action was paired with the decision to force the cessation of streetcar service, in the favor of buses.  Even though DC's streetcars were newer than the average for the industry, sat more people than buses, provided a more stable ride, etc.

The new operator of the system, O. Roy Chalk, an airline operator, tried to get Congress to change its mind and recommit to streetcar operation, but they refused. (That I already knew.)  He even came up with a way to air condition the cars but that didn't matter either.

The only subtle point the presenter missed was the difference between what Steve Belmont in Cities in Full calls monocentric transit systems versus polycentric transit systems.

The SF MUNI system is set up to serve only San Francisco, which it does tightly, through a mix of streetcars and cable cars, light rail vehicles (that are basically streetcars), and buses. By contrast, the BART system serves the Bay Area and many cities with over 100 miles of trackage and stations, operating over a few hundred square miles.


Similarly, the DC streetcar system mostly just served DC, with a couple lines that extended out some distance into Maryland. Like the SF MUNI system today, it tightly served the city, providing what I call "intra-city transit" as opposed to "inter-city transit" that is transit over long distance from suburbs to city and back.

The DC streetcar system had much higher ridership at its peak than WMATA has ever had, more than 50% higher.

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One of the cool things that CHRS did before and after the presentation was run film (video) of the various streetcar lines in operation.

After the decision was made to eliminate streetcar service, a streetcar fan from NYC made the decision to film service on all of the lines.  So he would come down on weekends to film.