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Urban Transportation
Urban Transportation The development of urban transportation has not
changed with the cities; cities have changed with transportation. In the
early years of transportation it was the mass transit of horse and buggies
or electric rail cars that shaped cities. Then as the automobile became
affordable to the public, personal transportation redefined the city as it
was known. It is the automobile and the movement to the suburbs that has
public transportation struggling to make money today. The very first
transportation was with the horse. Then someone came up with the idea to
pair a horse up with a buggy. Now four to six people could be carried at
one time. These horse and buggies began to be common sight in cities and
public transportation was born. Before the horse and buggy people were
confined to the distance they could walk, so cities could not grow much.
People lived in the central business district because that is where they
worked. Now with the simple horse and buggy, people that can afford the
transportation can move a mile or two out of the central city (Guathier
174). The big explosion of growth and increased ridership came at the turn
of the century. The cause of this explosion was the electric streetcars
that were installed in many cities. Whichever direction the rail lines were
laid down and the streetcar moved, people began building their homes in
that direction. The automobile was just getting its beginning and people
were depending on public transportation to get them to work. As the
streetcar's tracks expanded east and west, the city's population shifted
that way as well. People did not need to be in walking distance of their
workplace anymore, but in walking distance of the nearest pickup point of
the streetcars (Guathier 175). As streetcars increased their length of
lines and service, the public increased their choices of residential
locations. People with higher incomes were able to move out of the central
part of cities and into outer areas (Guathier 174). This also fostered the
concentration of different ethnic groups within separate neighborhoods
(Guathier 175). This separation reversed the intermingling that had been
taking place during the late 1800's between various economic groups and the
different ethnic groups in the cities. Social stratification and sorting of
different groups throughout the city was rapidly increased thanks to the
streetcar spreading out the cities (Guathier 175). As cities spread out in
the early 1900's, railroads developed interurban and suburban railroad to
connect the outlying areas of the city. As the electric streetcars
continued to move the people around the cities, the railroads opened up the
first suburbs on the outlying areas. Large industrial industries were the
first businesses to relocate around the peripheral area of the old city
thanks to rail easing the transport of goods (G |