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Comment by struppi | Hacker News Reader

The reasons sound very compelling, but I think one reason is missing. I would suggest that the main reason streetcars survived in many cities in Europe, but not in the USA is:

Here in Europe, public transport is not done by privately owned companies, but by the Cities themselves. So the city is very interested in keeping them running.

And it can also keep the fares low by tax subsidies. For example, here in Linz (AT), I only pay €285,00 instead of €444,34 for an annual ticket, because the city of Linz pays the rest for its residents.

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BTW, private car usage is heavily subsidized. Streets and parking lots are paid by the tax-payer in most countries around the world.

The article pointed out that the issue was because of the fare lock-ins, not because they were private. Do you realize how ridiculous 5 cents is, even for 1920? That's like 59 cents in todays buying power.

Even the subsidized 285 Euro price you pay for a yearly pass could have afforded multiple rides nearly every day paying per ride at those rates.

And you think the cities would have insisted in fare lock-ins, had they operated the street cars themselves?

They were stupid enough to do it to the companies, there is little reason to believe they wouldn't have caved to the same political pressure from constituents to keep the prices low if they were operating it.

Austria also lost lots of streetcars to the cars and so did many other cities in Europe. A big reason for that was the switch to the right for traffic. As there were alternatives there was sometimes no reason to keep the trams.

People are openly wondering why people in developing countries want to keep on cooking with dirty smoky stoves while there would be easy to use better cleaner alternatives. http://www.wired.com/2012/08/gates-foundation-toilets/

Reminds me of the switch from streetcars to cars - who in their right mind would want to start polluting the city? Maybe back then the air quality was atrocious anyway because of all the inner city industry and heating.

I happen to know that Linz (AT) and other European cities currently build new streetcar lines.

And in Edinburgh, no wait they don't, yes they do. Eh no, they don't.

(Joke explainer for the non-Scots: Edinburgh began building a street-car (tram) system some years ago, massively over budget and a huge political mess, it is now as good as shelved. There is one tram but it doesn't move, but you can look at it if you want to).

Actually, the Edinburgh trams line opened about a year ago. Hugely delayed, a shorter line than planned and massively over budget, but they're actually running trams on it now.

Where does it go? I moved from the UK so I have lost all contact with the ongoing fiascoes.

I may as well reply somewhat late to say the final route goes from the airport to York Place, which isn't even the complete phase 1. Or the complete Phase 1a. They basically seem to have reached to the point where the route linked the airport to the main train station and decided to call it a day.

Someone on Wikipedia made a map that illustrates the original plans vs. what has actually been built. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edinburgh_tramway_map...

Aha, thanks.

Sure, and so do probably the US. There is no denying however that lines were lost after the war all over the world for different reasons.

Austria currently has streetcars in Graz, Linz, Vienna, Gmunden and Innsbruck. The only lines that is growing are Linz?

On the other hand we lost Baden, Dornbirn-Lustenau, Ebelsberg-St. Florian, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, St. Pölten, Unterach–See and Ybbs. Most of them to buses and cars.

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