[rakerman]

Special report series

* http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/

* Letter from Ottawa (http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/archive/2010/05/letter-from-ottawa/56806/)

* Here Comes the Neighborhood (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093):

In the early 20th century, every town of more than 5,000 people was served by streetcars, even though real household income was one-third what it is today. By 1920, metropolitan Los Angeles had the longest street-railway network in the world. Atlanta’s rail system was accessible to nearly all residents. Until 1950, our grandparents and great-grandparents did not need a car to get around, since they could rely upon various forms of rail transit. A hundred years ago, the average household spent only 5 percent of its income on transportation.

How did the country afford that extensive rail system? Real-estate developers, sometimes aided by electric utilities, not only built the systems but paid rent to the cities for the rights-of-way.

[lrt's friend]

Special report series

* http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/

* Letter from Ottawa (http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/archive/2010/05/letter-from-ottawa/56806/)

* Here Comes the Neighborhood (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093):

How do you access the full story that you have quoted from? I have seen this or something similar before. As I recall, the private developers built the streetcar lines in order to sell lots and/or houses on their land tracts. The streetcars were built and operated at a loss and once the lots/houses were all sold, there was no longer any incentive to operate and maintain them. The developers moved on and it was up to someone else to run the streetcars or shut them down. As we all know, streetcar lines built from 1900 to 1930, were mostly shut down between 1930 and 1960. So, the whole private funding of streetcar lines was often a loss leader and was not sustainable especially with the increasing competition from private automobiles.

I have seen some evidence of this in Ottawa, although mostly bus lines. There was a land boom just prior to World War I and a lot of land tracts were opened up for development. The developers facilitated access to their land tracts with bus lines (probably using jitneys). Once the land boom ended, most of the development land was abandoned. The bus lines were shut down as the developers moved on or went bankrupt.

There was one mostly forgotten electric railway project, namely the Ottawa and Morrisburg Electric Railway. This would have connected several of the land boom development tracts along Bank Street south, namely Alta Vista, Ridgemont, what became known as Ellwood and Blossom Park. Construction actually was started and several miles of railbed were prepared, but with end of the land boom, this project also went belly up. No rail was ever placed on the railbed which was gradually reclaimed into farm fields or disappeared under Bank Street widening projects.

[rakerman]

How do you access the full story that you have quoted from?

Um, I can access the full story at the Here Comes the Neighbourhood link.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093 (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093)

[RTWAP]

Um, I can access the full story at the Here Comes the Neighbourhood link.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093 (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093)

Me too.

Good article.