Saint Petersburg rips up streetcar lines

[Psy]

Leningrad uhh Saint Petersburg has been ripping up streetcar lines since the breakup of the U.S.S.R to the extent that it went from the world's largest streetcar network to only the 4th.

Why? Why do capitalists hate public transit so much they pay workers to rip up tracks? The steel can't be worth that much relative to the labor cost of ripping it up and there are massive train grave yards in Russia with far more steel just rusting away if that is what capitalists are after.

[Q]

The short answer is to secure the monopoly of the car and oil industry.

This was at least the main reasoning for destroying public transit systems in the west, mainly the USA.

[Drace]

Im not quite understanding.
What do you mean by street car lanes?

[Psy]

Im not quite understanding.
What do you mean by street car lanes?
Streetcar lines as in railway line (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/railway_line) but for Streetcars.

[Psy]

The short answer is to secure the monopoly of the car and oil industry.

This was at least the main reasoning for destroying public transit systems in the west, mainly the USA.
People need jobs to afford cars. Russia's automotive industry is insignificant while its railway industry is massive or rather was massive and still fairly large. Thus cutting down on mass transit is creating more unemployment meaning actually fewer people that can afford cars.

So there is kinda a huge flaw in the strategy to destroy Russia's mass transit system to increase demand for cars.

[Dimentio]

There has been quite much destruction in the 90's. Helicopter factories and large industrial plants were sold for just fractions of their price and their products destroyed. This looting was partially the result from corruption, and partially from reforms imposed from the West with the hidden purpose of destroying the capacity of a competitor.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

People need jobs to afford cars. Russia's automotive industry is insignificant while its railway industry is massive or rather was massive and still fairly large. Thus cutting down on mass transit is creating more unemployment meaning actually fewer people that can afford cars.

So there is kinda a huge flaw in the strategy to destroy Russia's mass transit system to increase demand for cars.

Oh Psy, can't you see? The people that used to work in the railyards are now working to tear out the tracks, thereby earning money for a down payment on a car so that way when there is no more track to tear out they will be unemployed and be unable to make their payments forcing them into piles of debt they can't afford that gets exacerbated with each month as interest accumulates forcing them into de facto slavery as all their money goes toward clearing an ever-increasing balance!! :rolleyes:

[syndicat]

Streetcar lines were not, in most cases, torn out for private cars in the USA or elsewhere. Growth of car use did make streetcar lines increasingly unprofitable. But mainly the reason was that switching to buses could reduce expenses for the transit company. So it has to do with the logic of a market economy.

It might be socially better to have electrically powered streetcars, but the transit company is only concerned with profits. If it can reduce expenses by going to buses, it will make more money or reduce its losses. In the case of St Petersburg, the old Soviet government heavily subsidized mass transit. If the transit companies are now left to what they can get from fares, then market pressures are greater. If the buses are powered with fossil fuels, then the ecological effects are worse. If they replace the streetcars with electric trolleybuses, it might not matter that much.

The main way that streetcars are more expensive than buses is the cost of maintaining the tracks. Buses can simply piggyback on street pavements that are paid for by lots of users.

[Psy]

Streetcar lines were not, in most cases, torn out for private cars in the USA or elsewhere. Growth of car use did make streetcar lines increasingly unprofitable. But mainly the reason was that switching to buses could reduce expenses for the transit company. So it has to do with the logic of a market economy.

It might be socially better to have electrically powered streetcars, but the transit company is only concerned with profits. If it can reduce expenses by going to buses, it will make more money or reduce its losses. In the case of St Petersburg, the old Soviet government heavily subsidized mass transit. If the transit companies are now left to what they can get from fares, then market pressures are greater. If the buses are powered with fossil fuels, then the ecological effects are worse. If they replace the streetcars with electric trolleybuses, it might not matter that much.

The main way that streetcars are more expensive than buses is the cost of maintaining the tracks. Buses can simply piggyback on street pavements that are paid for by lots of users.
When buses came in the US most of the streetcar lines fixed capital were nearing the end of their life and with falling ridership operators didn't like the idea of investing in new fixed capital that would last decades. We seen this when Japanese National Railways was privatized, as the rolling stock needed replacing the private companies opted for cheaper rolling stock with much shorter operating lives that not only meant their capital was tied up for as long but they didn't as much maintenance since they were not planning on running the rolling stock for decades like Japanese National Railway did.

It is a common trend for national railways to invest large sums of fixed capital for the long term and want long lasting durable rolling stock they can run into the ground after decades of use, while it is common for private railways to invest for the short term wanting to trade long term economic efficiency for less investment in fixed capital.

To overhaul rolling stock a railway needs to have a army of mechanics that can strip rolling down down their parts and put them back together thus not only the need for a massive investment of fixed capital but of variable capital in the form of skilled workers. Still Russia doesn't need more unemployed skilled workers.

[Q]

In this context I would like to link to the fine blogpost by TheCultofAbeLincoln about A Travesty We're Still Paying For (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=368) on the traffic jam known today as Los Angeles where the issue of breaking off mass transit played a huge role in the mess they have today.