A streetcar junction at Springfield’s 8th & Main. Today, this intersection is one of the hottest up and coming commercial districts in the urban core.
The streetcar system’s demise came when it was acquired by the Motor Transit Company for $335,000 in January 1932. The Motor Transit Company then proceeded to shut down the streetcar lines, replacing them with new bus routes. On December 12, 1936, the Motor Transit Company achieved its goal in making Jacksonville the first of Florida’s major cities to cease all streetcar operations in favor of buses. In later years it was discovered that the streetcars were shut down and replaced by buses as a part of a General Motors streetcar conspiracy. Also known as the Great American streetcar scandal, the deliberate destruction of streetcars was a part of a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency.
Remnants of the Main Street streetcar line surfaced in the recent reconstruction a bridge over Hogans Creek.
88 years later, the commercial districts built around Jacksonville’s defunct streetcar system have become some of the city’s most desired hotspots for pedestrian-scale vibrancy and investment validating the nationwide push to invest in fixed transit networks as catalyst for infill economic development and confirming our loss in dismantling our reliable public transit system.
Murray Hill’s popular First Block initially grew up around a streetcar line that connected the neighborhood with downtown.
Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com