MORE Thoughts -- PRCo--2000 -- What Trolleycars Remain ed??

[Fred W. Schneider III]

I don't think this should be too offensive to Pittsburgh types ... I'll start out
with the East Liberty Mall to make the tie in.  The East Liberty Mall was not
significantly different from European physical construction practices of the era
but, like so many American attempts to copy what works in Europe, we failed to
first compare our thoughts with those of the typical European.  We took the
physical urban changes totally out of context with the German, Swiss, or Austrian
mindset.  In so doing, we failed miserably and we will continue to fail every time
we ignore why their system works for them.  It is not necessarily that we are
wedded to our automobiles for they equally like private transportation.  I
remember Frits van Dam telling me that he was probably the only person in his
neighborhood who rode a bicycle to work in the Hague or took his family downtown
at night on the tram instead of driving his car.  Frits explained that public
transport was provided in Holland for the youth and the elderly.  I don't think
that is much different than in the United States.

What is different is:

1.  European cities are densely populated in comparison to ours.  European
nations, save perhaps places like northern Scotland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and
Iceland, are also densely settled.  For example, Germany (east and west) has a
population in excess of 80 million people (for discusssion's sake, about 1/3 to
1/4 of the U. S. population) shoe horned into a space about the size of Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  We have as much difficulty understanding how
densely settled Europe is as they do the theme that you can drive for 80
kilometers across Wyoming without seeing a house.  When you have as many people
living in such a small area as they do, public transportation works by default.
Malls outside of town don't work because we need to feed all those people.
Environmentalists simply won't allow us to pave farm land.   In much of Europe, no
one is going to provide free parking at a shopping center ... you want to park,
you pay.  Just a concept they have.

2.  The Europeans are incredibly environmentally conscious in contrast to the
Americans.  Political parties such as Germany's Green party may not take an
election but they get enough votes to make the more central parties follow their
advice.  In America, urban residents will take their trash to the suburbs at night
and throw it on someone elses lawn.  Here in Lancaster, an estimated one-third of
the city residents have no trash collection service because it costs too much.
The German cities can post trash and recycling containers at a central location
... one for paper, another for white glass, green glass, brown glass, other glass,
steel, aluminum ... and the people will use them. They treated mercury camera
batteries as hazardous waste 20 years ago; we were still throwing them in the
wastebasket.   The cities are spotless.  Its a mindset.  Americans will disconnect
the pollution control devices on their cars because they use gas (when gas costs
1/3 as much as in Europe).  The Swiss can post signs suggesting that motorists
turn off the engine while waiting at a red light; the drivers will do it simply
because it is the proper thing to do.

3.  Automobile ownership in Europe is extensive.  I suspect most husbands and
wives have their own cars today.  What is different is an almost continent wide
them that teenagers don't need cars to cruise around.  Youth are often allowed
licenses for small displacement motorcycles and motor scooters at age 16 but
automobile licenses generally come at age 18 to 20.  Drivers are much better
trained; as a general rule mom, pop, Uncle George, or the older brother do not and
are not permitted to train you.  By law you pay a few thousand dollars to a
quality licensed school where you are trained the right way.  To be most honest, I
am a lot more comfortable driving in Germany, even Italy, than in eastern
Pennsylvania.   But cars don't work except for drives in the country because you
will pay to stow it no matter where you go.

4.  The population density (even cities will have twice as many people per square
mile as ours do) helps to foster urban transport.  It isn't as good over there as
it was 30 years ago but it is one hell of a lot better than we see in Philly,
Pittsburgh, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.

5.  Finally, East Liberty emulated the practices in European cities twenty years
ago.  In the meantime they are trying to copy us.  Three years ago, I remember
standing outside an IBIS Motel (owned by Accor, the same French company that owns
Motel 6) in Avignon, France  in the evening "not so rush hour" watching the almost
empty city bus restricted in a sea of autos.  The French may tell us they want to
have a pure language; they wanted our troops off their soil in the 1960s, but they
surely like our malls.  Every city of 3000 souls or more seems to have one now.
In East Germany, where clear titles to land in the 1990s was problematic, much of
the new construction was suburban.  Its changing.  Hurry and you can still see
some traces of the old world.


Jim Holland wrote:

> Greetings!
>
>         I can certainly see a case developed for either side.  Don has pointed
> out that the mall/rail concept works extremely well in Europe; it is not
> that the same would not work here, it just would not be *accepted*
> because of the auto bias - in addition to other factors.  Don't know
> that a comprehensive assessment of various factors could be presented
> here.
>         As I was writing that the E. Liberty mall would have killed the
> trolleycars, I was thinking how well the trolleycars could be integrated
> into the mall.  But I remember the very-strong-dislike-for-trolleycars
> by the public in general (certainly not all) and this would have
> prevented their use in the E. Liberty mall.  Decisions concerning the
> trolleycars were not practical - they were biased.
>         And really, the trolleycar was dead.  With the last production in 1952
> for SF, no cars were available to continue trolleycar lines.  At the
> time of mall construction, anti-trolleycar-bias was extremely high,
> trolleycar availability was essentially non-existant, current
> trolleycars were old and needed replaced, so it seems that the odds
> would favor discontinuing trolleycars.
>
> Dietrich, Robert J. wrote:
>
> > Since we are doing "What-if's" What if the streetcars were still running in
> > East Liberty when they converted to a mall, don't you think they would have
> > kept the streetcars and kept out the autos???
>
> > Bob
>
> > In a message dated 06/09/2000 7:21:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > pghpcc at pacbell.net writes:
> >
> > << And with E. Liberty turned into a mall, that would have killed many car
> >  lines there. >>
>
> James B. Holland
>
>         Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1940  --  1950
>     To e-mail privately, please click here: mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
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