Los Angeles used to have the largest rail system in the world. What killed it?
>>17960773Everyone knows the problem with trains and the reason Elnog hates them is because they take up lots of Real Estate in highly inconvenient and inherently socialist ways. Every hundred yards of track they pulled up is worth millions today in LA. The solution is monorails unironically
Companies like Phillips Petroleum bought the streetcar systems and replaced them with buses.
>>17960773It’s complicated. Electric street railways were owned by latter day robber barons and built on a shaky foundation of shady finance and real estate speculation with land along their lines. Things boomed in the early 20th century but by the 1920s the empty lots were sold and things started to go awry with competition from autos, not just people who could afford it preferring cars but traffic clogging the streets and slowing trolleys. Inflation, labor costs and the Depression were further blows, relived a bit by heavy WWII era ridership, then postwar came freeways, two cars in every garage and massive line sbsndonments in the 50s, followed by municipal ownership picking up whatever mess was left. City ownership of transit was Red socialism in the early 20th century then became accepted as a bailout of failed companies. Likewise, companies like National City Lines were salvage operations stripping assets and buying GM buses, before they handed it off to the cities. Transit companies were perceived as evil corporations with brutal labor practices and lousy service, so there was little sympathy when they faltered, and besides, everyone wanted a shiny car rather than wait for some relic from the past. It didn’t take some Roger Rabbit conspiracy to send street railways into a doom spiral.
Pacific Electric built the greater Los Angeles metro area with streetcar suburbs. Ywn ride a red car along the surf.
>>17960773>largest rail system in the world.*largest electric railcar system in the worldThe USA still has the largest rail system in the world, but it's almost exclusively for freight>>17960975Take the AmTrak Surfliner which still exists and is in regular operation. You wont because you don't actually care about public transport as much as you care about virtue signaling online about how much you care about itThe simple fact of the matter is that the average person preferred cars and saw value in personal transportation and those same people voted to have public infrastructure reflect this. It wasn't some conspiracy big oil, at least not to the degree people think that it is.
Supreme tardation to abandon a line like this for one more lane.
>>17960800>ElnogWho?
>>17960999Anon, the LA Metro still exists and runs along many of the same lines
>>17960986>The simple fact of the matter is that the average person preferred cars and saw value in personal transportation and those same people voted to have public infrastructure reflect this.So why are so many other countries, including equally or more prosperous ones, much less car-dependent than the US?
>>17961007Why does every single country on Earth have a massive car culture? It's because most people see the value in personal transportationOur Highway system was literally modeled after the German Autobahn, every developed country from Europe to Japan has similar car-based infrastructure despite toting themselves as "walkable" which is a loaded term that has no actual standard. Every city on Earth is "walkable" if you have legs or a bike.
>>17960986>>17961005>Functional Trains: -_-;>>17960999>>17960975>Trains (but slower and less passenger capacity): ^_^
>>17960986>You wont because you don't actually care about public transport as much as you care about virtue signaling online about how much you care about itI’m stuck in a midwestern suburb with no mass transit but I rode the subway every day for 15 years when I lived in New York. I’m a train autiste, not a “why don’t we have trainz like in Yurop?” leftie. Rail transit works in some American cities and it’s a forced meme in others. The suburban sprawl built by Pacific Electric carried the seeds of its own destruction once automobiles became common.
>>17961015>Why does every single country on Earth have a massive car culture?Not really.
>>17961029>Japan, Italy, Britain, and Germany have no car cultureSheltered retard
>>17961021Different tools for different jobs. Interurbans could hit 70 mph on open track but also operate like trolleys on the streets. Lesser capacity but you could run more frequent service without the 4-5 man crew of a passenger train and coaches.
>>17961033There's difference between them and having to own a car out of necessities and the whole fixation on it.
>>17961025> The suburban sprawl built by Pacific Electric carried the seeds of its own destruction once automobiles became common.I cannot stress this enough, but Suburbs are NOT the result of cars or trams, they began appearing as a result of the Safety Bicycle as early as the mid 1880s as bicycles allowed personal transportation and gave pedestrians a mechanical advantage that enabled longer commutes away from city centers and train stations. The average speed of a train in 1880 was between 20-30 miles per hour, which a bicycle can easily match. One could argue even modern suburbs are far more equipped for bicycle traffic than car traffic, as they're explicitly designed for slower traffic for pedestrian safety and to reduce traffic noise.
>>17961015>Why does every single country on Earth have a massive car culture? It's because most people see the value in personal transportationThe US is among the more car-centric and car-dependent in infrastructure, even if cars are certainly present everywhere. Let me illustrate by way of comparison: In one of my favorite Japanese films, one of the protagonist's complaints about her little podunk town (which is presumably meant to ring plausible to Japanese audiences; I cannot willfully assume they intended it to impress risibly (or enviably) as it does to my countrymen) is that the train only comes through once every two hours; I live in a US city of some 10^5 souls with a metropolitan area of another 5 times that, and the train (servicing the only train station in the entire metropolitan area) comes through two times a day, once going east and once going west. A town the size of hers absolutely would not have a train station here, unless it happened to lie along the Amtrak line (the only one for several hundred miles in either direction). (Japan also has enough of the referent to feel the need to coin the expression "paper driver", i.e. a driver on paper only, one who owns a driver's license but never takes advantage of the fact; American English, of which I am a native speaker, offers, to my knowledge, no equivalent term.)>Every city on Earth is "walkable" if you have legs or a bike.There are many locations in the US where you literally cannot safely get from point A to point B without a car because there are no sidewalks or bike lanes, or in which basic necessities are a half hour away by car (and so eminently impracticable to reach by bicycle, let alone foot).
>>17961045>because there are no sidewalksI only ever see this in exurbs or on the skids and usually it's adjacent to an empty field but this is hardly typical> or bike laneslmao, I promise you anon, you don't need bike lanes, the little stencil spray painted stick figure on the asphalt isn't necessary, it's nice to have but most drivers have eyes and are more than capable of seeing you and avoiding you.
>>17961040Bicycles and electric street railways boomed at roughly the same time and complimented each other but when I talk about streetcar suburbs it’s as much about the land speculation as trolley cars. These companies were making money with the American real estate hustle as much as collecting nickel fares from the eventual residents. Bicycles makers and riders lobbied for better roads but didn’t have a hustle going on with suburban properties.
>>17961045>or in which basic necessities are a half hour away by carBrother, if basic necessities are a half-hour from you by car then walkable cities aren't going to solve this, you live in the middle of nowhere dude
>>17961050Our entire strategy for transportation infrastructure consists of telling everyone else to be safe so cars can be dangerous.
>>17961059Car-centric suburbs full of nothing but houses are not really the middle of nowhere, but they're still unlivable without a car.
>>17961005But is that highway (used to know which one) one of them? I know some old routes have been restored at great expense and it’s mostly subway or private right of way rather than street running.
>>17961064My guy, I live in the middle of the 'burbs and I can tell you you're exaggerating. A half hour, by car? Lmao you're out of your mind dude. 10 minutes by car and 20 minutes by bike sounds more realistic to me>>17961062We're taught that bikes are allowed the same road privileges as cars do anon, that's the point of "Share the Road"
>>17961084>Lmao you're out of your mind dude. 10 minutes by car and 20 minutes by bike sounds more realistic to me20 minutes is still an awful long bike ride to bring back an entire load of groceries every week, unless you have a cargo bike, and even then it sounds arduous.>We're taught that bikes are allowed the same road privileges as cars do anon, that's the point of "Share the Road"Doesn't mean cyclists are safe in practice.
>>17961092You don't need a cargo bike, depending on how many groceries you get in one go you just need a single thermal bag you can carry over your shoulder. 20 minutes in my experience is also a bit of an exaggeration, for me personally it would be more like 10-15 minutes by bike plus you don't need to waste time finding a parking space which saves more time but I don't live where you do so your results will vary>Doesn't mean cyclists are safe in practice.Yeah but what does it mean to be safe in practice? I'm not going to let fear get in the way of going outside. To me it's safe enough, even without bike lanes (which there are plenty but sometimes they disappear for no reason) cars legally need to give you at least 3 feet of separation
>>17961098>You don't need a cargo bike, depending on how many groceries you get in one go you just need a single thermal bag you can carry over your shoulder.I don't know, my father bikes (he's in good shape for his age) and my parents still bring the old little red wagon to our walking-distance grocery store. And that's not even all their shopping- they get some other items at another, non-walking-distance grocery store if they're cheaper there!>cars legally need to give you at least 3 feet of separationAnd I'm sure it will be great consolation that it says on your gravestone "He had right of way."
>>17960773N
>>17960773>deferred maintenance during WWII that was never fully repaired because the government decided to blow its money on quite literally everything else>cagies>buses>General Motors>Judge DoomHonestly it's fucking sad too because Pacific Electric and Sacramento Northern were two of the largest electric railways in the world in 1940. By 1960, both were essentially gone. California High Speed Rail might actually be something besides a pipe dream/massive real estate grift if that infrastructure had survived and been upgraded to the modern day.>>17960975San Pedro used to have a rebuilt Red Car line but it was discontinued in 2015 due to some gay ass construction project.t. took it from my hotel to 22nd Street Landing for a fishing charter in 2014>>17960986>AmtrashOnly good thing about the Surfliner was that they used to run the last dome car and business class was expensive enough to price out having to ride with non-whites.
>>17960773Cal Worthington and his dog spot killed ithttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsLdT4slsk
train troons are unironically the stupidest motherfuckers on this website
>>17961366BasedOnly OGs know the legend that was Cal Worthington (rest in peace)
>>17961607>go to Nipland>LE HEKKIN O EM GEE THEY HAVE TRAINS4niggers who put on an act on hating trains but 'jakking over the Nips having them deserve to get shot.
I actually researched this in detail. I believe it was the grandson of south Carolina governor Calhoun was a rail investor and eventually found himself in San Diego buying the inner city rail system there. The city was run by a Jewish communist with his organized labor goons which worked on the rail system. They milked Calhoun of every penny striking here and there and forcing him to pay protection money. Of course the Jew then exposed Calhoun for having paid him a bribe to stop trying to bankrupt him. This lead to a lengthy trial and a long with the strikes and natural disasters the Jewish mayor and labor unions managed to bankrupt Calhoun and the inner city rail system forever resulting in its removal The main point of contention was that the rails needed more power and that they would need larger cables. One faction wanted completely buried cables which would have been astronomically expensive while Calhoun wanted the cheaper option of power lines.
>>17961838Sorry senator
>>17961838And it was actually San Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Calhoun
>>17961869>Ruef was born Abraham Rueff of parents from a French–Jewish background.>he developed an interest in fighting the rampant corruption that was endemic to local and national politics at the time. With some fellow students, he formed the "Municipal Reform League". He corresponded with like-minded individuals across the nation, including Theodore Roosevelt. >he wanted more power and in 1901 was the driving force behind the foundation of the new Union Labor Party>Ruef selected Eugene Schmitz to run for mayor on the Union Labor Party ticket. >Behind the scenes, Ruef wrote Schmitz' speeches, planned his public appearances, and effectively ran his campaign. Schmitz became "Ruef's puppet" and was elected mayor on November 5, 1901, and was reelected in 1903 and 1905, each time by solid majorities.>The 1905 election was the first time voting machines were used, which permitted the voter to cast the entire Union Labor ticket.[2] Ruef's political machine gradually gained control of the Chief of Police, the Board of Supervisors, and several judges. >On December 6, 1906, Ruef and Schmitz were arraigned in court. "As the indictments were read out by the clerk, Ruef made clear his disdain for the proceedings by standing with his back to the judge." At the time of his trial, Ruef occupied offices in The Columbus Tower, in North Beach.[3]:253 In February 1907, Ruef pleaded not guilty. On March 18, 1907, all of the supervisors confessed before a grand jury to "receiving money from Ruef in connection with the Home Telephone, overhead trolley, prize fight monopoly, and gas rates deals."[
>>17961607>train troons are unironically the stupidest motherfuckers on this websiteDo you mean foamers with terminal assburger’s, or lefties whining about why we don’t have passenger trains like everyone else?It’s crazy how the political perception of railroads has flipped. At one time, railroads were the epitome of evil capitalism, and street railway barons like Collis Huntington in Southern California were going strong after mainline rail workers unionized and the worst financial shenanigans of steam railroads were reined in a bit. Trolley systems were notorious for brutal strikebreaking in the first decades of the 20th century. Nowadays in the U.S., passenger trains are seen as socialism on rails both by naive lefties and conservatards.
>>17961912Commies can't make the intellectual jump from "trains are le evil" to "the reason trains are evil i because they were illegitimate barons given power illegally during the civil war by lincoln"
>>17960773>Trains1! = Good!1
>>17960773Made obsolete by car dependent infrastructure.>>17961360Kill yourself
>>17963882made obsolete by swindling unions
I find it interesting how train engineering has evolved to the point of being able to solve the problem.
Public transportation can only function in high trust, ethnically homogeneous societies.
>>17964419There's something to this... was talking to a cashier at a grocery store, somehow public transit came up. She said she used to take it but ended up getting harassed and didn't feel safe. Sure, maybe it was a white guy harassing her, but dimes to dollars I'd bet it was a swarthy dude.
