Reply #9: Economics is more a factor

[happyslug]

I am sorry, but outside the urban/suburban cores AND the Major Interstates and other Highways (And the Main lines of the Railroads), cell service is still questionable. Given that situation many people in the Rural Areas still rely on land lines. Rural residents also tend to be more conservative.

Another factor is many older Americans, have used their home number for decades, they friends and relatives ALL know that number (For example I know my Mother's Phone number, it has been the same since 1972). Most land line phone service is cheap, often $10 a month if you just want basic phone service and nothing else (Again many older Americans). $10 a month, $120 a year to keep using a phone number that has been in use for decades sounds cheap. In fact much cheaper then Cell Phone service if that is the alternative (And many people keep both, do to the fact they have had that land line for decades and it is cheap to maintain).

Again, a tendency for older, more settled and thus more conservative type of person. I point out my relatives, till the early 2000s (AFTER 9/11 for example) I was the only person among my near relatives that had a Cell Phone. Either before or right after 9/11 I dropped my land line (It has been nine years and I forget exactly when). It is only after 9/11 that most of my relatives adopted Cell Phones, cutting back land lines whenever they moved and had to adopt a new number (Kept the Cell Phone, never did adopt a new land line). So this movement to Cell Phones is NOT that old, and many people still have land lines. People who tend to move around, Cell Phone is a preferred, but people tend to forget during 9/11 do to the nature of the attacks and the massive demand to call people, cell phones were of no use in New York City, but the pay phones (if you could find one) still worked as did most of the Landlines (Through hopelessly tied up).

Just pointing out that more settled and financially secure type of person will retain land lines long after other had dropped land lines and use Cell Phones Exclusively.

A similar situation occurred in the 1930s. The decline in streetcar use fell into two patterns. The first was the decline in RURAL Interurbans, starting in the early 1920s. Do to the fact that the Ukraine, the bread basket for Europe before WWI, was in Soviet hands, Europe looked to the US for food. Thus the price of wheat went up and rural America had a booming economy. These, now "rich" farmers ended up buying cars. The two big markets for cars in the 1920s was the urban upper middle class and the rural farmers, with the farmers being the bigger market of the two. People with cars did not have to wait for the interurban AND if the farmer lived in an area without an Interurban he could still get to town.

These two events lead to decline in rural Interurban use. Farmers near interurbans took their car instead of waiting for the Interurbans. Farmers away from the Interurbans, would no longer WALK to the Interurban and catch an Interurban, just drive straight to town. This caused the Interurban to lose money, so the Interurbans cut service so they could operate fuller cars. This made the Interurbans even less convenient for rural residents so even less people took the Interurbans. Some Interurbans lasted till the 1930s, then the depression killed them off.

A few Interurbans survived till the 1950s, but these tended to be in industrial rural areas i.e. coal mining, charcoal making etc (West Penn Railway in Western Pennsylvania is a classic example of such an Interurban). Another group of Interurbans that survived were routes that turned suburban starting in the 1920s (The Washington Pa and Donora/Charleroi Interurban routes of the old Pittsburgh Railway was an example of this, lasted till the early 1950s as an Interurban then cut back to the Allegheny County line for that part of the line had become a heavily used trolley line for suburban dwellers along its path).

My point is that do to the rural boom of the 1920s, car ownership in rural america took off. On the other hand urban residents stayed with foot travail or streetcars (Nationally "Electric Railways" i.e Streetcars/Trolleys/Light Rail Vehicles(LRVs) peaked usage was in 1918, but the City of Pittsburgh peak usage was in 1927 AND the Los Angles Streetcar use peaked in 1944). Most urban streetcars held their own in the 1930s and 1940s. Only After WWII did you start to see a switch of URBAN residents from streetcars to automobiles. This lead to the second decline in streetcar usage, but this time in urban areas.

Please note there were two big exceptions to the above. First was small Cities. Small cities dropped Streetcars extensively within ten years of the decline of Interurbans. Most such small cities streetcar service was directly or indirectly tied in with the Interurbans and as more people opt for cars and this increase AFTER the Interurbans closed down, such small cities stop using streetcars (Converting to buses, much like the Interurbans were replaced by buses, and then nothing). An exception to this exception also exists, if the small city was tied in with a Large City via an interconnected Streetcar system. Thus Washington PA kept its streetcars till the early 1950s for that system connected Washington PA to Pittsburgh.

The second big exception was New York City. What seems to be the situation in New York City was the Mayor and City Council became tired of hearing of complaints from car users (who tended to be upper middle class residents of New York City, even today about 90% of all trips in New York is via Public Transportation NOT automobile). What was the Complaint? Some streetcar was blocking traffic picking up or leaving off passengers. These complaints were heard even of the Car Drivers did NOT see the streetcar, but saw the streetcar wires and assumed the streetcar was causing the traffic tie up (That most such traffic tie up was do to having to many cars on the street was NOT an acceptable response to the car drivers, again wealthy New Yorkers). To "solve" this problem New York adopted a policy of removing the streetcars and replacing them with buses. Why? Once the streetcar were done, the wires would be removed, the tracks would be removed and when someone was in a traffic jam they blame what they saw, to many cars NOT the buses, which they did NOT see unless it was in front of them (Unlike the Streetcars, which if the driver did not see the streetcar, he still saw the wire AND the tracks, telling the driver it was a streetcar out of sight that was causing the back up).

Yes, note the logic in New York City which was to minimize complaints, and Buses did that even if buses were more expensive to run, carried fewer people, and did not last as long (Yes, studies have consistently found that streetcars, now LRVs, operate more efficiently in high population density areas then any other surface transportation system, but no such studies were even done in New York City for such studies would have found that out but the Politicians wanted to minimize complaints NOT provide the most efficient traffic system.

I bring up Streetcars/Interurbans/Trolleys/LRVs for that is how most people moved around in urban areas in the 1920s and 1930s and till the late 1940s. Given the 1920 US Census was the first US Census that showed more people living in urban areas then rural areas, you had the majority of Americans NOT having a car till the late 1940s or early 1950s (1954 is considered the first year where more people were buying replacements cars then buying their first car). Furthermore car ownership was restricted to rural residents AND the upper middle class of urban areas, NOT the working class people of the urban areas NOR the vast number of rural residents that did NOT own a car. Once you look at the above it becomes clear why the 1936 poll was so bad, it excluded vast sections of the economy THAT WAS THE MOST HURT BY THE DEPRESSION AND MOST HELPED BY FDR.