Most of these systems were scrapped in the 1950's. Although they do survive in a limited form in places like St. Louis and Pittsburgh. The modern cars are climate controlled and have a very nice smooth ride. They are propelled by DC traction motors which pick-up their power from an overhead wire. A very reliable system.
If we went back to this system on a national basis we could take a lot of cars and buses off the road--and cut back on a lot of ugly sprawl and pollution.
Tom Lehman
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Jim heartfield wrote:
>
> >Not necessarily, but it would go a long way. Incidentally, giving
> >working class people cars is not some fantastic notion plucked out of a
> >future socialist programme. It's what is happening, in Britain at least,
> >and I suspect in the US, right now. Working class people are buying
> >cars. Middle class people resent that, and wish that they could take
> >them away from the working class people.
>
> James, sometimes you say things that leave me almost speechless. The
> anti-car crowd in the U.S., in the immortal words of former In These
> Times editor Jimmy Weinstein, consists of about a dozen weirdos who
> live in New York & San Francisco. The U.S. working and middle classes
> are buying cars like crazy. In fact almost half the vehicles sold in
> the U.S. now are SUVs, which make mere cars seem gentle and quaint.
> Vehicle-miles traveled continues to boom. My friend Dan Lazare, one
> of the dozen weirdos that Weinstein directed his comment at, says the
> average U.S. suburban household makes 11 car trips a day. A shopping
> center consultant quoted in Joel Garreau's awful book Edge City said
> the average American will walk only 300 feet before wanting to get in
> her [sic] car.
>
> Doug