Arcadia Publishing Baltimore’s Streetcars and Buses History Book

Description

In the 1850s, Baltimore\u0027s 170,000 residents had few options when it came to getting around town. Before the decade\u0027s end, however, the omnibus-an urban version of the stagecoach-emerged as Baltimore\u0027s first mass-transit vehicle. Horsecars followed, then cable cars and ultimately electrically powered streetcars. Recognizing the need for cohesion, the city\u0027s myriad transit providers merged into a single operator. United Railways and Electric Company, incorporated in 1899, faced the unenviable task of integrating routes being served by inadequate, incompatible and often obsolete equipment. Over the next seven decades, privately run mass transit in Baltimore survived bankruptcy, a name change, two world wars, the proliferation of private automobiles, a takeover by out-of-town interests and a plethora of new vehicles. Arguably a unified system of privately operated mass transit was no closer to being a reality in 1970, when it reached the end of the line and was taken over by the state.