Dec 15, 2008
Streetcars Past & Future
By: Kevin Buchanan
Over the weekend, a friend on the modern streetcar committee forwarded me a high-res copy of a 1925 Fort Worth Streetcar map. It was very interesting, but naturally, due to its age it wasn’t completely clear. So I mapped the 1925 streetcar routes onto a Google Earth satellite image of present-day Fort Worth and tagged several of the streets the system ran on, to give a better idea of how extensive the old system was in this town:
The density of the old system is impressive. One could get pretty much anywhere in urban Fort Worth with a streetcar trip and a short walk. For comparison, here is the 1925 system in blue, with the proposed modern streetcar starter system in red.
Why, oh, why would we have ever given up that old system? You could totally get anywhere without ever having to drive! Must’ve been nice. Now we’re struggling just to get a fraction of that old system back. So much for progress, huh?
Wow. That is actually more extensive than I would have thought. How many streetcar companies operated those lines? Do you know the route of the Interurban that went to Dallas and Denton?
We gave our public realm over to parking lots and ten-lane “streets.” I do hope the city will continue making progress to take it back to being a place for people, and not cars. Follow the old streetcar routes today and you’ll see the remnants of great neighborhoods and public spaces. We can have it again – the bones are still there. Hopefully within a few years we’ll have the heart back, rolling through the old framework on shiny new rails.
Sam,
I believe the East Lancaster route was the home of the Interurban line to Dallas, but one of the North Texas Historic Transportation folks who reads the site might want to correct me on that.
As far as I understand it, there was one company that ran the system – North Texas Traction Company. Their headquarters actually still stands in the heart of Sundance Square – the Jett Building, where Jamba Juice and The Ranch are located at 3rd & Main.
The old system was indeed very extensive. It’s hard to believe it now, so far away from those times, but Fort Worth had one of the finest streetcar systems anywhere.
Kevin, that’s correct. The line down East Lancaster went to Handley, Arlington, Grand Prairie, and Dallas. The Northern Texas Traction Co. car on display at the ITC once operated on this line.
Also, the line going through Sycamore Park and down Miller Avenue went on to Enon(Everman), Burleson, Joshua, and Cleburne.
There was never a direct line from Fort Worth to Denton although the “Texas Interurban” railway operated from Dallas to Denton on shared tracks with the M-K-T railroad. This ran on almost the exact route of the DART “Green Line” currently under construction.
It’s amazing how much begging, pleading, planning, studying, maneuvering, etc. is necessary to build a fraction of what used to exist.