Early morning mist turns to drizzle, dampening the coats and spirits of the workers who clamor down the city streets. None have cars. Instead they gather under a shelter near parallel rails to wait for the vehicle that will carry them safe and dry through the city. As the vehicle approaches, all eyes in the throng turn upward, shifting their gaze from wet feet and brown puddles to the people already riding inside. The driver beckons the crowd, one by one, up the ladder as each gladly pays a pittance for the ease of transport. Riding on the rails is rough initially, but each passenger is happy to be out of the damp and resting before they arrive at their workplace.

?The city is Detroit, but a far cry from the Detroit of the new millennium. Instead of 21st century mass transit technology, the passengers are enjoying the latest transit innovation of 1863, a horse-drawn rail car. Obviously, workers could not rely on the convenience of an automobile 40 years before Henry Ford improved the assembly line and made them commonplace. Few could afford a private ride to work, which would have consisted of a horse-drawn carriage. Mass transportation was welcome in any form, and the city of Detroit obliged.

Now, 150 years later, Detroit is the Motor City, providing few transit options aside from the cars and trucks that swarm downtown from the surrounding suburbs every morning. It stands as an example of the decline of mass transit that has happened throughout the United States. With a bus system that many residents complain is insufficient and slow, and the insanely expensive people mover — it cost $67 million per mile to build — that covers less than three miles, the city could take a few lessons from its past.

Rolling into the 20th Century

Following the Civil War, Detroit was a city on the rise. African-Americans were migrating north, and northern cities were still thriving off a war-fueled economy. Mass transit advancement was pushed by growth and the capital for development. Horse-drawn trolleys began to pop up on the streets of Detroit in 1863, and transit grew at a whirlwind pace for the next 80 years.

By 1880 there were rails on nearly all of the city’s major roadways. Electric streetcar service began in Windsor, Ontario, during the early 1880’s, and spread quickly to Detroit. Horses were replaced by power lines running above all of the city’s rails, rendering mass transit immediately faster and more capable of taking large passenger loads. Electric trolleys were also more dependable, required less care and were considerably less pungent than their mammalian counterparts.

The success of Detroit’s trolley system prompted the city to expand an interurban service, linking outlying communities to downtown Detroit and creating a suburban network of rails. By 1901, the trolley system had consolidated, calling itself Detroit United Lines. The red trolley cars were reminiscent of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, with windows lining the sides and a metal arm attaching each to the power cable above. At its peak, people could see the red trolley cars coming to their neighborhood as far north as Port Huron, Mich., as far south as Toledo, Ohio, and as far west as Jackson, Mich.
After the city took control of streetcar operations in 1922, Detroit had the largest municipally owned transit system in the country. Downtown workers had little problem coming from apartments nearby or suburbs more than 20 miles away, even without one of the newly popular automobiles coming off Michigan assembly lines.

Buses began operation serving downtown Detroit in 1925. Despite the Great Depression, Grand Trunk Western Railroad began running a steam driven commuter rail between Pontiac and Detroit in 1931. Burgeoning mass transit capabilities characterized the Detroit Metro area throughout the depression, and continued to gain steam during World War II. Ironically, a year when many U.S. soldiers had yet to return home was the peak year in Detroit transit patronage. A total of 492 million passengers rode the Detroit transit lines in 1945, with a choice between bus, trolley and commuter train.

Mass transit development stalls

In most respects, Detroit’s transit history up to the end of WWII reflects that of the rest of the United States. New York, Boston, San Francisco and a handful of other major U.S. cities had urban rail systems by the beginning of the 20th century, and like Detroit, most U.S. cities adopted bus systems in the 1920s. The entire U.S. patronage of mass transit options peaked in 1946 at 23 billion, but has been on a steady and steep decline since.

Detroit’s declining mass transit system after WWII is an extreme illustration of the decline of U.S. mass transit, but its struggles are a good example of the political and social frustrations felt across the country. The last 50 years have been a time of big plans and promises, with little progress to show.

A 1953 study on Detroit’s transportation called for balance of the growing number of highways and the already shrinking mass transit systems, but that balance never occurred. Trolley services to Metro Detroit and its outlying suburbs ended in 1956. What followed were a series of promises made by the city and national government, none of which came to fruition.

The six major plans for mass transit improvement in Detroit made over the course of 40 years starting in 1958 either failed to get funding or were never fully approved. President Gerald Ford, a Michigan native, offered $600 million in federal funding for Southeast Michigan to build a more extensive rail transit system, but the money was hardly used. The commuter train services that had connected Detroit to its suburbs ended in 1983, and following plans to restart the service were quashed by expense. Instead of using the offered federal funding to rebuild the once proud urban and interurban railways, the People Mover was put into operation in 1987.

The People Mover is an elevated electric train that has exactly 2.9 miles of track in downtown Detroit. In his pitch for the 2006 Super Bowl the mayor of Detroit called the train a monorail, which may indicate how much attention is actually paid to the train, since it has always run on two rails. When built, the People Mover cost $67 million per mile, which was three times the cost of a new trolley system and 30 times the cost of restoring commuter rail.

In 1999, all hope of having downtown rail service in Detroit ended when General Motors removed a vital section of rail, and the Michigan Department of Transportation voted to extend Interstate Highway 375, cutting off the old city rail from downtown access.

The car is king

Mass transit systems in most U.S. cities did not decline quite as rapidly as Detroit, but the same problems of a lack in funding or inappropriate use of funds have been the cause of decline. New York’s transit system was the nation’s largest after WWII, but had to be rescued from enormous debt and poor maintenance in 1982 and continues to have fewer patrons each year. Chicago’s elevated train routes have actually shrunk in number and length since 1914. Now, less than half the amount in 1946 choose the train for transportation. In 1946, the United States’ mass transportation peak year, more than 23 billion people rode the train.

What is the source of such a broad decline? There are many, but all stem from automobiles, the companies behind them and the politics they push. According to Glenn Yago, author of The Decline of Transit, urban planners largely ignored mass transit options after WWII, choosing instead highway transportation as a solution for urban congestion. The nation was riding high on a war economy, and highway construction gave people jobs they needed. There was no worry of diminishing energy resources, so the auto industry boomed, and became an even more prevalent fixture in political decisions.

Cars offered greater freedom than mass transit, and low gasoline prices drove the industry until the early 1970s. Meanwhile, subway and train lines deteriorated. Costs rose because fewer people were riding them, only serving to drive more people away. In many cities, private companies took over the mass transit systems, so when profits dropped there was no government initiative to maintain the systems as viable commuter options. In cities like Los Angeles, this meant the closing of outlying rail branches, and smaller operating stations. The United States had turned into a cult of the automobile.

The energy crisis in the 1970s forced mass transportation back into the realm of public concern, but as in Detroit, concern was noted, but generally not acted upon. Initiatives such as New York’s revamping of subway and bus systems were a step forward, but most only made mass transit systems passable. People could again ride in cleanliness and safety, but there was little improvement beyond that.

No remedy in sight

Some argue that there is no point in restoring mass transit in major cities because the U.S. culture and economy will not support it. Dennis Polhill, a think-tank consultant in Golden, Colo., cited the fact that new rail options have not subsided traffic congestion. In his 1997 report “The Mass Transit Delusion,” Polhill attacked the idea of building new rail services as a form of mass transit. “The decline occurs because consumers are rational,” said Polhill. “Rail forces more transfers, which increases travel times and decreases convenience.”

With the difficulties facing the country’s mass transit revamp, it remains an issue at the forefront of the minds of many. U.S. cities can look to foreign cities such as Paris, London and Tokyo, all with advanced mass transit systems that serve far more patrons than any individual U.S. city.

Detroit has more plans on the table for something called SpeedLink, a rapid transit bus system, but there is no guarantee that the SpeedLink plan will go any further than all the plans that were quashed in the past 50 years. Neither is there any guarantee that Americans will accept mass transit options if provided. There is only the reality of congested roads, diminishing fuel resources, and a possible alleviation of both through increased mass transportation options.