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c h a p t e r t h r e e Powering Urban Transit From 1830 to 1860 American urban areas experienced a “mobility revolution” driven by a shift to new transportation technologies. These technologies included horse-pulled public transportation, such as omnibuses and street railways, and the steam railroad. They were revolutionary changes because they combined “distance and regularity”—as urban historian Henry Binford notes, the “exceptional” trip became “ordinary,” and the ordinary trip grew in distance.1 This chapter focuses on the horse/vehicle driving machine and how it stimulated the evolution of the modern American city—a city characterized by a central business district, specialized residential neighborhoods, and peripheral suburbs. The development of horse-drawn public transit had more than geographic e¤ects, however, and included social, cultural, gender, and political conflicts over the new technology. The evolving modern city was increasingly segregated by function and by social class. Travel itself in the horse-drawn vehicle came to reflect the tensions and prejudices of urban society. Technologically, the key to taking advantage of equine mobility was to reduce fares by minimizing the number of prime movers. We have already explored one important element of this—the development of larger, stronger horses. In the mid-nineteenth century the two other important elements of mobility technology —the creation of smooth operating surfaces and reductions in vehicle weight—also improved. With smoother operating surfaces horses had less friction to overcome in pulling vehicles, while reduced weight meant that more of a horse’s strength was used for the payload. Lower fares meant more mobility, whether suburban commuting by the middle class, resort travel by inner-city residents , or journeys to the central business district for work, shopping, or entertainment . The three criteria of reasonable price, fixed schedules, and predetermined routes were critical to the evolution of urban transit systems. Hacks and cabs, discussed in the previous chapter, were also important urban horse-drawn vehicles, but they did not have fixed schedules and responded, like the modern taxicab, on demand. Their constraints—the lack of a fixed schedule and route and the charge of relatively high fee—meant that they had a relatively smaller e¤ect on the structure of the evolving city than did other horse-powered vehicles, such as the omnibus and especially the streetcar. The Omnibus The horse-drawn omnibus, which evolved from the traditional stagecoach, was the transit technology that satisfied the two criteria of fixed schedules and predetermined routes. Entrepreneurs first introduced the vehicle in France in the mid1820s . Parisian police had initially resisted the innovation because they feared that omnibuses would create public safety issues by mixing various classes and would also obstruct narrow streets. Authorities in the French cities of Nantes, Bordeaux , and Lyon were less concerned about these issues, and the omnibus first appeared there.2 In 1828, finally convinced of their safety, the Parisian police approved them. The prefect of police required the omnibuses to seat no fewer than twelve and no more than twenty riders along fixed routes. The first company to begin operations had vehicles, pulled by three horses, that seated a total of fourteen passengers in three di¤erently priced compartments. The omnibus was an instant success with the Parisian bourgeoisie. By the end of 1829, ten firms operated a total of 264 coaches; ten years later, thirty-five lines operated 409 coaches. In 1854, just before consolidation of the omnibus lines into a government -sponsored monopoly known as the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus (CGO), 34 million passengers rode the omnibus lines.3 Crowded London also needed better public transport. Beginning in the first years of the nineteenth century, short-distance stagecoach routes bringing passengers from the suburbs to the city became increasingly popular. In the city itself , however, a hackney monopoly blocked Parliament from granting permission to run omnibuses regularly along city streets until 1832, when Parliament gave its approval, and franchised omnibuses, described as little more than boxes on wheels, finally began operating on London streets. London’s omnibuses were initially bigger than the Paris omnibuses, seating twenty passengers behind three horses. Later London omnibuses were smaller to better navigate narrow city streets, with two horses pulling vehicles that carried fourteen passengers. By 1838, 620 omnibuses operated in the city.4 Although not yet as large as Paris or London, major cities in America, such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, also required improved public transport. As in London, regularly scheduled short-distance stages from...

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