Why didn't US Midwestern cities invest in heavy rail in the early 1900s?

[SFBruin]

Why didn't cities in the US Midwest, outside of Chicago and Cleveland, invest in building heavy rail transit systems around the time that New York, Boston and Philadelphia did in the early 1900s?

Was this simply a matter of population, or was there another factor at play?

[ardecila]

Basically rapid transit grew up in the 1900s as a way to serve densely-settled immigrant populations. Here is a link to the number of foreign-born in the US in each census... in 1910, there is a clear line. Cities with more than 200,000 foreign-born have rapid transit systems. Cities with fewer immigrants do not.

https://www.census.gov/population/ww...029/tab19.html

Culturally the idea of the "big city" was formed and wrapped up things like rapid transit, immigrant enclaves, Catholicism, corruption/patronage, and other stereotypes about these cities and the people who lived in them. Cities in the Midwest had a different culture and didn't want to become "big cities", even if they did have immigrants coming in.

The second wave of rapid transit in the late 1920s/1930s occurred because of the increasing congestion from cars on city streets, and post 1929, coupled with the need to create jobs during the Depression. Midwest cities during this period were still pretty low-density, but a few cities did create elevated or above-ground tracks for streetcars (St Louis, Cincinnati, etc) in the most congested areas. Notably, there are two categories of Midwest city... St Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh were "river cities" instead of "prairie cities" and had a different culture, with denser neighborhoods and Catholicism featuring prominently from the earliest days.

[cabasse]

and cincinnati!


• Video Link

[jmecklenborg]

That Cincinnati Subway video illustrates the tunnel but is wildly factually incorrect. What's crazy is that those guys called me the day they came into town and I told them to see if the door is unlocked. They've probably made more money in youtube royalties for a video that took just a few hours to shoot and edit as compare to the book I wrote, which took 6 months to research.

https://www.amazon.com/Cincinnatis-I...3161515&sr=8-1

Also, in 2019 the city doubled down on the large water main that was installed in the tunnel in the 1950s. A branch was built at Ezzard Charles Drive to supply the under-construction FC Cincinnati soccer stadium.

[mrnyc]

the western half of the cleveland red line, the city's only heavy rail line, is a legacy line that was in operation since before 1920. the eastern half is newer. the date the city took it over in 1955 is considered the opening date. btw the cle red line is the first rail service to an airport.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Why didn't cities in the US Midwest, outside of Chicago and Cleveland, invest in building heavy rail transit systems around the time that New York, Boston and Philadelphia did in the early 1900s?

Was this simply a matter of population, or was there another factor at play?

They did? The only cities of major population in the Midwest in 1900 had all sorts of trains, street-cars and subways even if some are now gone (Cleveland)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Why didn't cities in the US Midwest, outside of Chicago and Cleveland, invest in building heavy rail transit systems around the time that New York, Boston and Philadelphia did in the early 1900s?

Was this simply a matter of population, or was there another factor at play?

They did. They didn't build subways. All of the rail systems were ripped up in favor of vehicular traffic.

Detroit tried to build a subway several times, and I'm sure most others did too. (I think the subway tunnels for Cincinnati still exist?)

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Basically rapid transit grew up in the 1900s as a way to serve densely-settled immigrant populations. Here is a link to the number of foreign-born in the US in each census... in 1910, there is a clear line. Cities with more than 200,000 foreign-born have rapid transit systems. Cities with fewer immigrants do not.

https://www.census.gov/population/ww...029/tab19.html

Culturally the idea of the "big city" was formed and wrapped up things like rapid transit, immigrant enclaves, Catholicism, corruption/patronage, and other stereotypes about these cities and the people who lived in them. Cities in the Midwest had a different culture and didn't want to become "big cities", even if they did have immigrants coming in.

The second wave of rapid transit in the late 1920s/1930s occurred because of the increasing congestion from cars on city streets, and post 1929, coupled with the need to create jobs during the Depression. Midwest cities during this period were still pretty low-density, but a few cities did create elevated or above-ground tracks for streetcars (St Louis, Cincinnati, etc) in the most congested areas. Notably, there are two categories of Midwest city... St Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh were "river cities" instead of "prairie cities" and had a different culture, with denser neighborhoods and Catholicism featuring prominently from the earliest days.

This immigrants and Catholicism is an interesting notion to explore... But cities were not building mass public transit systems to serve immigrants, Catholic or otherwise.

In 1910, as you cite, the sample size of cities with over 200k immigrants is composed of the big 3 NE Corridor cities and Chicago... this is not a cause-effect relationship of immigrant numbers causing the construction of large mass transit systems. It is a very direct relationship of the combination of cities' size, age, topography, and economy causing construction of those sytems.

Cities built rapid transit to serve booming population in total (not specifically foreign immigrant population). Mass internal migration from the 1880s to the turn of the century from more rural America to all cities (especially its largest ones) resulted in mass transit development in the biggest cities where the need was greatest. As cities were expanding their footprints during rapid industrialization and then as urban areas sprawled to include the early "streetcar suburbs".


Also, Catholicism became highly prominent to the point of urban cultural dominance back then in Midwestern cities, at the turn of the century and after, once the Irish, Poles, and Italians came in. Outside of St. Louis and Chicago... Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Columbus, for example, were heavily Catholic influenced... it was not just St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh... so this idea of "river cities" somehow featuring Catholicism more prominently is false. Pittsburgh is not a midwestern city anyway, but it certainly was not prominently Catholic "from its earliest days", as you assert. Cincinnati, even less so. The rationale equating Catholic immigration with rapid transit development is really flimsy.

[edale]

If only Cincinnati didn't abandon its subway project after miles and miles of tunnels had been built. Just one example of many of that city getting in its own damn way and limiting its potential.

Having this mass transit loop would have no doubt transformed and grew the city in a huge way. Fun and somewhat sad to think what could have been...

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Basically rapid transit grew up in the 1900s as a way to serve densely-settled immigrant populations. Here is a link to the number of foreign-born in the US in each census... in 1910, there is a clear line. Cities with more than 200,000 foreign-born have rapid transit systems. Cities with fewer immigrants do not.

https://www.census.gov/population/ww...029/tab19.html

Culturally the idea of the "big city" was formed and wrapped up things like rapid transit, immigrant enclaves, Catholicism, corruption/patronage, and other stereotypes about these cities and the people who lived in them. Cities in the Midwest had a different culture and didn't want to become "big cities", even if they did have immigrants coming in.

The second wave of rapid transit in the late 1920s/1930s occurred because of the increasing congestion from cars on city streets, and post 1929, coupled with the need to create jobs during the Depression. Midwest cities during this period were still pretty low-density, but a few cities did create elevated or above-ground tracks for streetcars (St Louis, Cincinnati, etc) in the most congested areas. Notably, there are two categories of Midwest city... St Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh were "river cities" instead of "prairie cities" and had a different culture, with denser neighborhoods and Catholicism featuring prominently from the earliest days.

Did any city successfully build a still extant subway system in the 1920s or 1930s? I think all of the successful, multi-line subways/els/grade-separated-transit in the U.S. were either started before 1910 or in the 1960s and 1970s. Plus Los Angeles, which started in the 1990s.

[DCReid]

Didn't most of those cities have streetcars? The point may be why so few built heavy transit versus streetcars. I think even Detroit had streetcars. Was it because most cities had not reached a critical mass when autos became the predominate form of transportation? Especially in the Midwest, which employed thousands of workers in the auto and supplier factories. Even places like Columbus and Dayton had auto suppliers employing thousands.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Didn't most of those cities have streetcars? The point may be why so few built heavy transit versus streetcars. I think even Detroit had streetcars. Was it because most cities had not reached a critical mass when autos became the predominate form of transportation? Especially in the Midwest, which employed thousands of workers in the auto and supplier factories. Even places like Columbus and Dayton had auto suppliers employing thousands.

Detroit was one of the largest streetcar networks in the world, if not the absolute largest in the world. At its highwater mark, the system had more than 200 miles of track in the city of Detroit.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Detroit was one of the largest streetcar networks in the world, if not the absolute largest in the world.

nearly every US city that was large in 1950 likes to make this claim.

i've heard it stated about detroit, chicago, LA, philly, st. louis, etc.

who really knows what the largest such system was back in the day?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

nearly every US city that was large in 1950 likes to make this claim.

i've heard it stated about detroit, chicago, LA, philly, st. louis, etc.

who really knows what the largest such system was back in the day?

Yes, I hedged the statement. The bottom line is that it was a massive rail system. But we know from geography alone that only Chicago, L.A., Philly, or NYC would've conceivably had a larger system.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Did any city successfully build a still extant subway system in the 1920s or 1930s? I think all of the successful, multi-line subways/els/grade-separated-transit in the U.S. were either started before 1910 or in the 1960s and 1970s. Plus Los Angeles, which started in the 1990s.

Depends on how you define “subway system”... the easy answer is no, no American cities launched a fully grade separated network in this period.

However, the existing 30-year old systems underwent large expansions in this period, and several cities added underground or elevated portions to their streetcar system to bypass congested downtown streets. Newark added subway-surface lines to its streetcar system in this period, and both Los Angeles and St Louis built underground streetcar/interurban terminals, with tunnel portals well outside of downtown. SF built an elevated interurban terminal (Transbay) for the Key System connected to the Bay Bridge, and the Muni had several tunnels to avoid steep grades. Similar features existed in Pittsburgh.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yes, I hedged the statement. The bottom line is that it was a massive rail system. But we know from geography alone that only Chicago, L.A., Philly, or NYC would've conceivably had a larger system.

quick lookup for st louis “ In the 1920s, about 1,650 streetcars rumbled along 485 miles of tracks”

“The DSR (Detroits street railway) would enter the war years with 20 railcar routes serviced by 910 streetcars...” i get the impression that the detroit streetcar system didn't keep up with the explosive growth.

[Steely Dan]

^ according to wikipedia, at its height, Chicago Surface Lines (the city's streetcar operator) had 3100 streetcars that operated on 101 routes over 1,000 miles of tracks.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Surface_Lines





source: http://chicagoinmaps.com/chicagostreetcars.html



the vast majority of those routes are still running as bus routes today, but oh for what could have been if not for all of the craptacular shortsightedness of the mid 20th century.

[Steely Dan]

so getting back to the thread topic, there were only 4 large scale fully grade-separated heavy rail rapid transit systems built in US cities in the 1890 - 1920 time period - new york, chicago, philadelphia, and boston. not coincidentally, those were 4 of the 5 largest cities in the US during that time period.

so i think the main differentiator at that time was size. the absolute biggest cities built large-scale dedicated rapid transit systems because they had to. the cities in the next size range down at that time were able to get by with a combination of streetcars, commuter rail, and interesting hybrids in downtown cores (like streetcars running through subway tunnels or commuter rail on elevated structures).

and by the 1920s & 30s when cities like detroit and LA would have been getting big enough to have full-blown rapid transit, building such systems was no longer en vogue as the automobile was seen as the future of transportation.

it wasn't until the 1970s/80s when the US finally got back into the game of building large scale heavy rail rapid transit systems in SF, DC, atlanta, miami, and LA.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ according to wikipedia, at its height, Chicago Surface Lines (the city's streetcar operator) had 3100 streetcars that operated on 101 routes over 1,000 miles of tracks.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Surface_Lines





source: http://chicagoinmaps.com/chicagostreetcars.html



the vast majority of those routes are still running as bus routes today, but oh for what could have been if not for all of the craptacular shortsightedness of the mid 20th century.

I believe it was the first president of the CTA who led the charge to get rid of streetcars, which is somewhat ironic.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

quick lookup for st louis “ In the 1920s, about 1,650 streetcars rumbled along 485 miles of tracks”

“The DSR (Detroits street railway) would enter the war years with 20 railcar routes serviced by 910 streetcars...” i get the impression that the detroit streetcar system didn't keep up with the explosive growth.

Maybe. This is what Curbed has claimed:

Before 1956, Detroit had the largest streetcar system in the nation. In fact, once upon a time, every major U.S. city had a streetcar system, and most of them were “torn out in a vast criminal conspiracy that is well documented” as Jeff Speck writes in Walkable City. The lines were bought and closed by National City Lines, a company created by General Motors, Mack Truck, Firestone Tire, and others. When the conspiracy was proven, a judge ordered the executives to be fined $1.

https://detroit.curbed.com/2017/9/22...ransit-history