A few weeks ago I mentioned how vehicle miles traveled is becoming an environmental calamity in the world. Specifically, the pollutants emitted and liquid fuels used by more and more automobiles on the road are not healthy and should be lessened within our lifetimes.

One solution for people to consider is public transit, a transport system to move larger numbers of the general public. The more commuters in the same vehicle, the less each person’s environmental impact per capita. 

Today, the only forms of public transit in mass numbers in Richmond are GRTC buses and Amtrak rail line. The future of public transit in the region is hopeful with more options waiting in the wings. 

As part of this two part series on public transit, I want to first look at transit’s history in Richmond.

According to Carlton McKenney's book "Rails in Richmond," horse-drawn carriages and the railroad were the primary modes of public transportation in the years prior to 1860. In this year public transit came to Richmond in the form of a horsecar. Horsecars were stagecoach-like vehicles pulled by teams of horses. This operation ran until around 1887.

Around this time, steam engines that burned firewood were used to turn big generators and produce electricity. Electricity as a fuel was a successful outcome.

In 1888 the electric streetcar or "trolley" came to Richmond as America’s first large scale and successful use of electricity to run public transit. On January 9, Car #28 became the first revenue streetcar industry in America, operating on the Church Hill line at a fare of five cents. According to McKenney, in a flash of hope, the car ran for a mile or two until the motors failed on Broad Street, and the car had to be pulled back to Church Hill by horses.

The electric street railway industry boomed over the next 30 years. Some of the most populous sections of the city were developed entirely by the streetcar, Earle Lutz wrote in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1949. Suburbs developed away from the city’s center and were connected with the streetcar in areas such as Forest Hill, Highland Park, Ginter Park, Fairmount and Westhampton.

Doris Holtz, 95, remembers this time well. For 50 years, Doris lived on Park Avenue and Cutshaw Avenue in the Fan. I interviewed Doris and attempted to bring back memories of the streetcar in Richmond; it wasn’t hard.

Car 934 (Broad & Main). Photo courtesy of GRTC.

"It was the greatest thrill to ride the streetcar." Doris had relatives in South Richmond and used to take a streetcar to 7th Street and transfer to another car to go over the James River. She said that the streetcar was her family’s primary mode of transportation until she was married and purchased a car in 1938.

It wasn’t long until electric transport began to feel competition by some of the other modes of transport we love so much today, namely automobiles. 

The discovery of large amounts of oil occurred in the mid-19th Century. The internal combustion engine started using refined oil in the form of gasoline around 1910. Hereafter, the automobile industry began to take shape from what seemed like limitless amounts of oil that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

In Richmond personal automobiles and buses were progressing in the 1920’s. At the same time it was getting harder for the streetcar system to generate significant revenue. With the onset of War in 1941, McKenney wrote, a number of changes began to take shape with respect to public transit operations. 

Doris remembers this transition. "Buses started to travel along the same route as the streetcars." She stated that buses were better than streetcars; they were more comfortable, larger and just more convenient for folks to travel. 

McKenney writes," Probably the biggest driving force behind the [streetcar] transition was the post-war Richmonder.” He noted that Richmonders wanted their streets cleared for their new automobiles. This, along with more convenient buses, was the curse of the electric streetcar.

In 1948 the State Corporation Commission gave formal permission to remove all streetcar tracks from Richmond over the next several years. In late 1949 the Hull Street/Highland Park line was the last line converted to bus service, thus ending the short lifespan of the electric streetcar.

In summary, easily accessible and cheap gasoline literally fueled the major transition to the popular modes of transit we see in the world today. However, looming liquid fuel shortages might have a reverse effect for America’s future. 

The world is now experiencing major environmental effects from these types of operations which emit harmful pollutants and use so much oil.  How can we manage these secondary effects and make our ecosystem more sustainable for Richmond’s future inhabitants?

As I stated earlier, public transit is one solution to alleviate environmental woes. It is not so unimaginable that Richmond might someday return to certain conditions (fewer cars on the road, multiple options for transit) that were present around 1930. 

I’ll get to this point next week when I discuss what we can expect from transit in Richmond and its environmental responsibility in the years ahead.