It Was All Going Great Until It Went Bankrupt…

Doctoral Candidate Chris Blanchard gives a defense of the Boise Trolley the old college try:

Boise and the Valley had an extensive rail system that operated from 1891-1928, and it served the public quite well. Streetcar lines ran through all of downtown Boise, and the Interurban Lines ran out to Collister, Pierce Park, through Eagle, Star, Middleton, to Caldwell, Nampa, Meridian and back into Boise. Like many rail systems across the globe, however, the system ran into financial difficulties which led the owners to shut it down in 1928.

So, until it turned into a financial failure, everything was going well.  Mind you the original street car enjoyed its success when the automobile was not at all popular.  This experience would seem to be an argument against the trolley folly as we now live in a society where cars are used and people like having them.

The big argument from Blanchard is that the trolley is not a transportation project, but an economic development project, which is a dubious argument at best. It’s not hard to imagine that the trolley could end up snarling traffic  and driving more business out of the downtown area.