Technological Innovation and the Rise and Fall of Urban Mass Transit

This article departs from the usual discussion of the role of urban transit in effecting spatial change and looks instead at how public pol - icy and the conflicting demands of various constituencies contributed to the demise of the urban mass transit industry. 1 Five constituent groups affected urban transit's evolution and eventual decline: transit company employees, business interests, politicians, investors, and, of course, riders. Each of these groups placed its own set of demands upon the transit industry—demands that conflicted and competed with one another. It was this conflict, and not the advent of the private automobile, that resulted in transit's demise.