Tucked at the bottom of Maria Saporta’s recent report from the launch of the Atlanta Streetcar, there’s this great map of the Atlanta Streetcar system from the 1940s that you’ve gotta see.
CLICK HERE for the high-res version of the map, so you can zoom in close and see all the different trolley and bus routes all over the city!
Here’s a quick peek at the Decatur/Druid Hills/Avondale area to get you started.
Solid green lines are the trolley lines, and the dashed red lines are bus lines. (And if you run across the dashed green “Trackless Trolley” line – like up in Buckhead – it was basically an electric bus that drew its electricity from overhead wires.)
In 1940 we had a much more robust transit system then we have 75 years later. Marta has about 45 miles of train tracks spread across a much larger geography. In 1940 rails were going in every direction albeit over a smaller area, but it was a much more useful system, and clearly it was not necessary to own a car.
Then came along the nationwide buyout of trolley systems by a shell company owned by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil, Phillips and Mack Trucks. They bought trolley systems in as many as 100 cities and converted them to bus systems. They were found guilty of anti-trust and fined a whopping $5,000. in 1947. The treasurer of GM was fined $1. The demise of the trolley was a watershed event in American cities.
Why were they fined so little? I may have Known previously but have since forgotten.
Because public policy was changing to de-emphasize public transportation and the defendants had deep enough pockets to wear out the ordinary people who were the plaintiffs besides wanting to line their own pockets with profits from fuel, tires, and motor vehicles.. Check out the National City Lines case sometime.
The judge set the fines and apparently did not agree with the verdict of the jury. He must have thought it was a fair business practice. The use of autos was gaining momentum. Georgia Power was the trolley operator in Atlanta. We were not part of the anti-trust case.
Sounds like it was Judge Doom from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
Christopher Lloyd may have taken the streetcar, but he also gave us Modern Family.