[PRCo] Re: Penna. Highway History

[Fred Schneider]

Thanks for the compliment.  We all need it once in a while.   And there is a lot
more to observe  We also need to carry these observations to a higher level ...
such as we had 1.4 million registered machines in the state in 1928 and a state
population under 9.6 million people ... if we assume 4 persons to a family and
crunch the numbers, we have one motor vehicle for every 1.7 families.  Some of
them were buses, some were farm tractors, some were trucks ... but to be sure we
had more than one car for every two families.

Not hard to figure out is it, why the rural troley lines disappeared in the
1930s?

To complicate matters still farther, we were in the midst of the worst economic
downturn of the century or maybe of our entire nation.  What would have happened
if the national unemployment rate wasn't hovering around 30%.  Would the trolleys
have lasted longer?  I doubt it.  I think more cars would have been sold and the
trolley lines would have been gone earlier.  And without an event called World
War II also?  Maybe those urban trolley lines that quit in the 1950s would have
been gone in the 1940s.

Donald Galt wrote:

> Interesting observations, Fred. I'm thinking we couldn't have a better man in
> Harrisburg.
>
> Don