Part front matter for Part II Unsubsidized Private Transit

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The losses piled up for private transit companies during the interwar years, but even in 1945, national transit quality could have gone either way. Most cities had not ripped out all their streetcars, some executives had partly modernized systems with buses and trolleybuses, and traction companies were coming off a wartime boom that had set ridership records. There was cautious optimism because American cities were still densely populated and commercially vibrant. If transit managers could somehow find a way to modernize their product, many thought they might retain riders. Had private transit operators faced the problem of declining ridership alone, they might have performed better. However, they met an overwhelming tide of anti-transit choices and patterns.

Austerity. Most American cities after World War II continued to rely on private-sector transit throughout the 1940s–1960s even after it was clear that only public operating and capital support could maintain quality urban transit systems. America’s private-sector transit systems, responsible for almost every American system before the 1960s (and numbering about 1,200 at their height), were the first and most numerous victims of toxic local political culture. Local politicians drove the private-sector transit managers in nearly all regions out of business through auto-friendly policies, welcoming vulture capitalists like NCL, and openly ignoring transit problems. State and federal officials kept transit problems at a distance during these crucial years of decline. The widespread local resistance to public purchase of systems and subsidies allowed for zombie private transit service: just enough for so-called captive riders.

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Part front matter for Part II Unsubsidized Private Transit

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