Auto Design

A streetcar “called Desire” in San Francisco.

Built in 1923, streetcar 952 came to San Francisco from New Orleans, by way of Chattanooga. Photographed in front of the Ferry Building around Christmastime. 

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From Scorpione I have just got the link to a very interesting transcipt of a ABC radio broadcasting. I think all those who loves cars and would like to drive them in a better environment where private and public transportation integrated and enhance each other, should read it.

Here some excerpt from the manuscript and the link http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2006/1749886.htm to the full text:………

Annabelle Quince: And am I right in thinking there was a time when that railway network was literally one of the biggest railway networks in the United States?

Jonathan Richmond: Oh, absolutely. In terms of suburban railways, it was one of the biggest in the world, huge. We’re talking about 1100 miles. It was a big, big system.……………..For example, the Pacific Electric cars ran at night, brought freight downtown instead of trucks, and during the daytime, they carried passengers. And that was not uncommon in a lot of American cities at the turn of the century, or when these lines were first being used.

…………………..

Martha Olsen: In 1925 General Motors and most all the auto companies in the US began to understand that the fantastically growing market for new automobiles was going flat. They weren’t selling as many new cars as they had in the past. And when they were looking at their markets, they understood very significantly that the more street cars and more cities were structured around street cars, the more difficult it was going to be to convince people to try to use an automobile in the city.

……

Martha Olsen: National City Lines was a company that was basically formed with the money from General Motors; it was owned and ostensibly led by a group of three brothers from northern Minnesota that had a small bus company, but essentially the money came from General Motors, and General Motors subsidiaries. It began in the mid-’30s, 1935, they began buying up systems in the Midwest and in the southeast. Then more systems came for sale and General Motors pulled in some other companies to help fund this venture. They went to Standard Oil, California, Phillips Petroleum, Firestone Tyre, Mack Truck, and pretty soon these companies were investing in buying up streetcar systems through the Midwest and coming out into the west.

……………….

Jonathan Richmond: Yes it did have an impact; it certainly accelerated the process at which rail stopped being existent, and it brought in the General Motors diesel bus.

Martha Olsen: Now Los Angeles is the pre-eminent automobile city. It’s a place where you don’t go, it’s very difficult to get anywhere without getting on a major freeway. What is ironic is that it was built on a rail system, it was built for a rail system, and it was organised and structured around a system that is now a ghost in that place.