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    Cincinnati on the Go: History of Mass Transit
    Cincinnati on the Go: History of Mass Transit
    Cincinnati on the Go: History of Mass Transit
    Ebook180 pages36 minutes

    Cincinnati on the Go: History of Mass Transit

    By Allen J. Singer

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    About this ebook

    Cincinnati on the Go explores the various modes of transportation that helped people get around in the first half of the 20th century, providing a unique view of the Queen City through the eyes of her everyday commuters. This volume features historic images of river transportation, street railways, city buses, steam railroads, the first automobiles, and wonderful, rare street scenes. Author Allen J. Singer expands on the transportation photographs in the previously released The Cincinnati Subway, inviting the reader up and out of the abandoned subway tunnels and on a visual tour through the historic streets of the Queen City on her riverboats, streetcars, cable cars, railroads, interurbans, and buses.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 20, 2004
    ISBN9781439615119
    Cincinnati on the Go: History of Mass Transit
    Author

    Allen J. Singer

    Author Allen J. Singer is a lifelong railroad fan. He harbors an interest in Cincinnati's rich history, particularly in the stories of its rapid-transit past, which includes streetcars, interurbans, inclined planes, the canal, and the subway tunnels.

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      Book preview

      Cincinnati on the Go - Allen J. Singer

      more.

      INTRODUCTION

      We enjoy living in our contemporary world of interstate highways, fast automobiles, and supersonic jets. We don’t think twice about hopping into our air-conditioned cars for a five-hour trip to another state, or even down the block to the grocery store. We live in an age of convenience, from the way we cook our food, to how we learn about the daily news and how we get to work every day. Our modern life is so totally ingrained that we cannot imagine living any other way. It is easy to forget that a century ago our grandparents and great-grandparents weren’t as fortunate as we, having to live without blacktop roads and 75 mile-per-hour highway speeds.

      No, their world wasn’t as fast as ours is today. Many people did not own a car until Henry Ford introduced the affordable Model T. And even during the early years of the automobile, people were still hitching up teams of horses to their carriages for rides into town. Paved streets were rare; instead, muddy roads filled with long narrow trenches snaked across the countryside. Early travelers had little choice but to drive on primitive public and toll roads. Horse-drawn wagons and buggies shared these roads with the early automobiles, which were noisy, did not go very fast, and weren’t 100 percent reliable transportation. All too often, stranded motorists were forced to swallow their pride and hire local farmers to pull their stalled vehicles out of ditches. Automobiles, of course, were only one of the many ways to get around a century ago.

      Transportation on the rivers helped Midwestern cities grow fast. Huge riverboats steamed up and down the Ohio River carrying passengers, raw materials, and finished goods from all around the country. To make further use of the important water routes, the Miami-Erie Canal was built during the first half the 19th century. Cargo and passengers then could be carried to points further north from Cincinnati on narrow canal boats pulled by mules or horses and sometimes, electric locomotives. The canal ran right through the middle of downtown Cincinnati, providing convenient access to its services. By the time the canal was finished and being used regularly, railroad tracks had been installed all over the Midwest. Steam railroads then augmented the canal until the latter 1800s, a time when the canal was put out of business entirely by the railroads, which had completely taken over as the better choice in interstate travel.

      Before the turn of the 20th century, cities all over the country began laying track into their streets and developing local mass transit systems: horse-pulled streetcars, cable cars, steam-driven streetcars, and inclined-plane railways to carry loaded streetcars up steep hills. In the late 1800s horsecars gave way to self-propelled streetcars when street railway companies electrified their systems. In 1888 electric streetcars appeared in Cincinnati.

      After electricity became the choice method of power, railroad tracks of a different kind began appearing across the Midwest. In the 1890s interurban railroads, or traction lines, began carrying passengers from city to city in individual high-speed cars, running on set schedules throughout the day. Steam railroads usually ran only twice a day and didn’t offer as much flexibility to early commuters. Interurban cars featured the added benefit of stopping at farmsteads and other out-of-the-way destinations and could travel to the heart of most cities. People all over the Midwest now had a cheap and easy way to travel almost anywhere they wanted, at speeds past 60 miles per hour.

      After the arrival of the Model T in 1908, city-dwellers and country-folk alike bought their very own automobiles. Soon families found they could not afford to be without their tin lizzies and gradually stopped patronizing the interurban railroads. By the early 1930s all of the traction companies were out of business.

      As more and more automobiles appeared on the streets, more and more roads had to be constructed. Downtown streets were widened for parking spaces, and buildings were demolished to make way for parking garages. New roads were constantly being built around the city and as cars started getting faster, new highways were built to accommodate the ever-changing needs of the motorists. Numerous gas stations, motor lodges, and restaurants soon were being built along major routes, changing urban landscapes forever. In every decade since, automotive technology has improved, styles have changed, and new highways and bridges have been built all across the country. All of which have been created to move American cars faster and faster.

      Ours is indeed a world of wonders: new high-speed light rail systems are on the drawing boards to operate at speeds over 200 miles per hour. Thanks to a century of research and technological improvements,

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