Found online: 1910s plans for a Detroit subway system

[Hermod]

Still working through these posts and document - at first glance pp. 81-110 has how the existing city lines would be re-routed... each map in this section also has ridership information.

Astronomical figures if you compare to today's ridership... Woodward Lines carried 45,000,000 passengers in 1914 [[pg. 82), Michigan Lines 46,000,000 [[pg. 87).

Compare that to SMART touting record ridership on it's website:

Look at some pictures of downtown Detroit around 1914. You will see several streetcars lined up bumper to bumper on the same line.

[CLAUDE G]

I went to the Red Wings game last night, I parked my car at the Compuware building and took the People Mover to Joe Louis Arena.

Besides the fact that the people mover SUCKS, its not a bad concept considering I can park my car anywhere along the people mover stations downtown and get to the game with minimal walking.

If Detroit had an extensive subway network in place, it would have covered alot more area besides where the people mover goes today and would have been way more efficient.

Granted we have surface busses today, but the the issue is that they just move too slow through traffic and there is alot of wait time in between waiting on the corner for the bus to come

I could imagine it now, we would have had a line that started at the Ambassador Bridge that ran down Michigan Ave. to the old train station, stopped at Old Tiger Stadium, and then to the center of Downtown. We could have had feeder lines up major streets like GrandRiver, Gratiot, Woodward and Van Dyke that would provide fast reliable transportation to the entire city

[Hermod]

Funny, Couzens was the commissioner and then president of the street railways commissioner. 1914-15. I wonder if somebody within the burgeoning auto companies had evidence of him killing a hooker after a party at the Manogian mansion-setting off a century long conspiracy of automotive dominance.

Every Detroit politician from Hazen Pingree to James Couzens was against the street railways [[first horse cars then electric cars) running through Detroit. They were aided and abetted in this by the reporters and editors of the various Detroit Newspapers. Nothing the DUR did was right. Every service glitch was magnified into how eeeeeevullll the streetcar tycoons were and how they were gouging and cheating the citizens of Detroit.

[Detroitnerd]

What exactly does your "in fairness" comment have to do with Mayor Couzen's decision to veto the Detroit subway proposal? ... Only in the fevered minds of the believers in the "great streetcar conspiracy" does it ...

Not the opening remark about Couzens, but about the growing post-war personal automobile market being barely tapped and the limits on demand being seen to be personal income growth and good roads, not urban mass transportation.

See, since GM began looking into eliminating streetcars as early as 1922, you cannot categorically say that GM didn't see limits to demand in urban mass transportation. As for them almost going out of business, who cares, right? We're discussing intent, not ability here.

And as for that "great streetcar conspiracy" bit, there are always going to be certain people who believe that it's perfectly OK for Firestone, Standard and GM to buy streetcar systems through their subsidiary and then demand they use their products. Of course, when your products are motor coaches [[GM), tires [[Firestone) and oil and gas [[Standard), I'm not quite sure how you do this without forcing a streetcar system to convert to buses. Maybe, in an alternate dimension, this is possible, but I'm just not seeing it here on planet Earth. Yes, the feds didn't stick them with the conspiracy charge, and that has allowed a lot of folks to say they didn't do it.

I'll say it again, in accepting the judgment, GM said, "We didn't do it. And we won't do it again."

[Hermod]

Not the opening remark about Couzens, but about the growing post-war personal automobile market being barely tapped and the limits on demand being seen to be personal income growth and good roads, not urban mass transportation.

See, since GM began looking into eliminating streetcars as early as 1922, you cannot categorically say that GM didn't see limits to demand in urban mass transportation. As for them almost going out of business, who cares, right? We're discussing intent, not ability here.

And as for that "great streetcar conspiracy" bit, there are always going to be certain people who believe that it's perfectly OK for Firestone, Standard and GM to buy streetcar systems through their subsidiary and then demand they use their products. Of course, when your products are motor coaches [[GM), tires [[Firestone) and oil and gas [[Standard), I'm not quite sure how you do this without forcing a streetcar system to convert to buses. Maybe, in an alternate dimension, this is possible, but I'm just not seeing it here on planet Earth. Yes, the feds didn't stick them with the conspiracy charge, and that has allowed a lot of folks to say they didn't do it.

I'll say it again, in accepting the judgment, GM said, "We didn't do it. And we won't do it again."

Although, the great streetcar conspiracy has nothing to do with the DSR. The DSR found out that the DUR wasn't exactly minting money on their streetcar system. At best, streetcars were a very low profit margin business and at worst, they were gigantic money sinks.

[Detroitnerd]

Although, the great streetcar conspiracy has nothing to do with the DSR. The DSR found out that the DUR wasn't exactly minting money on their streetcar system. At best, streetcars were a very low profit margin business and at worst, they were gigantic money sinks.

Yes, this controversey has nothing to do with the DSR, which, being a public department, could not be sold to National City Lines.

Hermod, stop talking about transportation as though it's something that's supposed to be inherently profitable. It isn't. We are paying for all the transportation costs whether we admit it or not. Either you pay it in the farebox, through taxes, or you pay the costs as externalities, or in the form of lost time, frustration, ugliness, pollution, poor health and boredom.

[Hermod]

Hermod, stop talking about transportation as though it's something that's supposed to be inherently profitable. It isn't. We are paying for all the transportation costs whether we admit it or not. Either you pay it in the farebox, through taxes, or you pay the costs as externalities, or in the form of lost time, frustration, ugliness, pollution, poor health and boredom.

Rail freight pays for itself. Check out the stock reports on the various large railroads in the US and Canada. Barge freight and truck freight of course get subsidized right of way.

Passenger rail quit paying for itself in the wage spike after WWI.

[Hermod]

Rail freight pays for itself. Check out the stock reports on the various large railroads in the US and Canada. Barge freight and truck freight of course get subsidized right of way.

Passenger rail quit paying for itself in the wage spike after WWI.

A good book for your perusal:
http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Inter.../dp/0804740143

[Detroitnerd]

Rail freight pays for itself. Check out the stock reports on the various large railroads in the US and Canada. Barge freight and truck freight of course get subsidized right of way.

Passenger rail quit paying for itself in the wage spike after WWI.

Yeah, except ... oops! ... it was the U.S. government granting vast acreages and right of way, as well as millions in subsidies, to build the whole system in the first place.

[Hermod]

Yeah, except ... oops! ... it was the U.S. government granting vast acreages and right of way, as well as millions in subsidies, to build the whole system in the first place.

Did you read my earlier post on this in the "$150 million" thread?

The reality was that, in the 19th century, the federal government was land rich and cash poor. In the populated parts of the country, railroads were built without federal government support and were quite prosperous. In the less populated parts of the country, it did not make economic sense to build a railroad as there were no customers and the government couldn't sell the land for farming because it was not economical to ship cash crops. As a result, the railroads were offered a subsidy in federal land as an inducement to build what would otherwise be an unprofitable line of track.

The federal government offered railroads "alternate sections" of government lands to build track through sparsely settled lands. In other words, for an east-west rail line, the railroad got one square mile north of the track for the first mile of track, one square mile south of the track for the next mile of track, and so on. The railroad could then sell these lands to settlers.

The government profited by the increase in value of the other government lands near the tracks which the government land offices could sell to settlers at a higher price. The government also profited by the growing rail network linking all parts of the country.

The government got tracks built where and when they wanted them built and the government profited by the increased value of the remaining government-owned land after the railroad was built. The railroad was rewarded with "alternate sections" which meant that the railroad was given one square mile [[640 "vast" acres) of empty land for each mile of track constructed. Note that this was true only for remote [[at the time) areas. In built up areas, the railroads had to purchase land for the track and were given no land grants by the government.