Beginning of the End for Streetcar Service: First Buses in 1924

Though the final end of Salem's streetcar service has been dated to 1927, one significant moment in that transition happened three years earlier in 1924. The first buses directly replaced streetcars. There had been less formal jitney and motor stage service before around Salem, and streetcar routes abandoned, but not an explicit and direct swap for buses operated by the streetcar company.

November 30th, 1924

Back in the summer of 1924 Seventeenth Street had been torn up in preparation for paving. It was delayed and as summer passed, residents got upset.

August 19th, 1924

The poles and wires for the streetcar were the impediment, and the streetcar company was waiting for "appropriations from the New York office." The City could not proceed on its own since the streetcar company owned them.

The delay turned out to be an opening for the streetcar company to end service. A week later it secured

Permission to abandon more than one mile of street car track in the city of Salem and to substitute two motor busses....Under the ordinance eight-tenths of a mile of track on Summer between Market and Chemeketa would be abandoned and the tracks, wires and poles removed. The same would apply to the North [Seventeenth] street line between Center and D, with that portion of Seventeenth between D and Market still with the track.

August 26th, 1924

The ordinance was signed a couple weeks later. At the time residents of Englewood objected that the removal would reduce their property values and make real estate sales more difficult. They understood the streetcar as core transportation and also an amenity.

September 10th, 1924

Additionally, "Several Englewood people have [said] they are going to buy automobiles or bicycles rather than pay more fare."

The buses arrived in mid-November, exactly 100 years ago. By the end of the month (at top) they were in service.

November 17th, 1924

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As a footnote, historian Peter Norton has been posting ads from the later 1920s and early 30s, and observing that obstruction by car drivers was a very great source of delay and degraded service for streetcar riders. This has become misunderstood as "assertions to the effect that 'people preferred to drive'."

one of many - via Bluesky

Here's an image of such obstruction on a monograph cover!

The Automobile and Urban Transit

I haven't noticed that theme of obstruction degrading service here yet, but it's one to be alert for! There might be more to say on that another time.

For overviews on the Salem system over the years see:

• Ben Maxwell's piece now at the Mill, "Salem’s First Streetcar Line"
• and at the Oregon Encyclopedia, "Salem Streetcar System"

And in current news, and a reminder of how expensive is new streetcar, at the Oregonian, "Plan to extend Portland Streetcar tracks half-mile to Montgomery Park goes to City Council; cost could top $120M"

See previous notes on streetcars here.