New Massachusetts MBTA Zoning Law

eustis22 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 4:19 pm >how is it that those were no longer profitable?

Ask Goodyear, Standard Oil, and General Motors.

It's way more complicated than that. In 1875 a shortline could charge 1/3 the stagecoach fare and make a very good profit. Soon, electric trolley companies came along with much lower costs, driving some of the steam railroads out of the local passenger business. Through the teens, robber-barons and railroads like the New Haven were practicing monopoly strategies, buying up presumably profitable railroads and trolley systems. By 1922?? the Boston Elevated was receiving a government subsidy. By 1930 passenger trains were starting to be cancelled, branch lines ripped up and trolleys bustituted.

The way it was told to me, streetcar companies themselves did not buy up tracts of land beyond the built up areas of the city to sell off to would be homeowners or to build and sell homes. Rather, "outside" companies or investors developed the land.

The first order of business was to provide water in the form of water mains, and most developers had the foresight to provide access paths that would support horse and buggy traffic even though most residents would not have their own horse and buggy. This added to the speculative nature of becoming a real estate developer.

,There are a few instances of a land developer creating and owning a streetcar company to provide transportation within and out to employment and commerce centers (suburb to city). Shaker Heights outside Cleveland is one example.