Technological Innovation and the Rise and Fall of Urban Mass Transit

Abstract

This article departs from the usual discussion of the role of urban transit in effecting spatial change and looks instead at how public policy and the conflicting demands of various constituencies contributed to the demise of the urban mass transit industry.1 Five constituent groups affected urban transit's evolution and eventual decline: transit company employees, business interests, politicians, investors, and, of course, riders. Each of these groups placed its own set of demands upon the transit industry-demands that conflicted and competed with one another. It was this conflict, and not the advent of the private automobile, that resulted in transit's demise. THE EMERGENCE OF CONSTITUENT DEPENDENCYAmerican cities, like cities elsewhere, were initially "walking cities"-their scope and breadth were a function of the fact that most of the time, most of the people traveled by foot. The first real revolution in mass transit came in the form of the horse-drawn streetcar, which transported dozens of people at a time for just five cents each. In

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Taming the Neighborhood Revolution: Planners, Power Brokers, and the Birth of Neotraditionalism in Portland, Oregon

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