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By 1910, the network of interurbans in the US was so dense that a determined commuter could hop interlinked streetcars from Elkhart, Wisconsin, to Oneonta, NY—a journey of 1,100 miles—exclusively by electric railway. 
Before the coming of cars, people traveled to nearby cities and towns on the electric interurban. By 1913, there were 15,000 miles of interurban track in the US.
(Video: a rare preserved interurban...)
@straphanger@urbanists.socialMost people think of streetcars as running in cities. But the interurbans were long-distance streetcar lines, some of them 60 miles long, reaching into farmers’ fields and forests with electric wires or third rails.
The Midwest was particularly rich in interurban rail. Ohio alone had 2,800 miles of tracks.
They were cheaply and quickly built, often on the side of existing roads. Service was typically a single car per hour. But they were cheap to ride, too, and provided freedom of movement to people of all backgrounds.
Los Angeles was built by interurbans—the Big Red Cars of Pacific Electric.
Canadian cities had them too. You could get all around the #Vancouver area using the British Columbia Electric Railway System.
They were never all that profitable. (Then, neither are highways and roads.) But what a public service they provided! And, because they were powered by electricity...
...they didn't pollute the countryside. (Unlike steam trains). Imagine a restored electric interurban system powered by wind or solar. Many European cities have de facto electric interurban systems. A good example is Karlsruhe, Germany, whose Stadtbahn trains run far outside the city.
I look into the history of the interurban in the US and Canada in this #Straphanger dispatch:
