Word: transition
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This is a tragic decline for a nation that emerged from the gas-rationing days of World War II with excellent mass transit. Ironically, the U.S. fell victim to postwar prosperity. As the economy began to boom, American life-styles changed dramatically. Instead of living in a city apartment and riding a trolley to work, people wanted a home in the suburbs and an auto or preferablly two. As a consequence, mass transit became caught in a vicious downward spiral: the more riders that were lost the worse the service became; in turn, bad service drove away additional riders...
...mass transit crisis defies quick solution. One reason: a serious shortage of capacity to build new equipment. Of the 16 firms that made big buses four decades ago, only four are left, and of them only two- Grumman Flexible and General Motors- are making city buses. Their combined output is fewer than 3,000 a year. Hence the U.S., which will need at least 36,000 new buses during the next four years, will have to turn to foreign manufacturers...
Pullman, once the proudest name in the U.S. rail car industry, announced in March that it was quitting the passenger field altogether. Only three months later the New York City Transit Authority sued Pullman for having delivered at least 235 subway cars that had serious structural flaws. Budd now remains the only U.S. maker of rail cars and trolleys. But because of the high price of its equipment, it is being beaten out by foreign competitors San Diego is buying trolleys for its 16-mile line to the Mexican border, on which construction will begin later this year, from...
...manufacturers have not yet come back to the mass transit market, although there has been a recent surge in passenger demand. During the past two years, while gas prices steadily increased, the nationwide number of travelers using mass transit has risen an average 4.4% a month over the preceding year, to an estimated 27,775,000 a day. In May, as California began taking the brunt of the first gasoline shortfalls, ridership across the U S Climbed 7.3%. Mass transit experts prediet that the June figures will show an increase "in the double digits," perhaps adding...
...result of the crushloads, mass transit companies are trying to patch up old equipment that should have been junked years ago. Commuter trains on Boston's Woburn-Winchester line are so decrepit that they are not allowed to travel faster than 15 m.p.h. Cleveland is refurbishing 50-year-old trolleys on the Shaker Heights line. Though the maximum efficient life for a bus is twelve years, Los Angeles is repairing some dating back to the early '50s. Kansas City has reactivated 60 rattletrap buses that it previously had retired. In desperation, Houston is leasing buses from Continental Trailways...