One thing that the article doesn&#x27;t mention but was still an important factor in the streetcars&#x27; demise: the need to replace the capital stock. Things like tracks and trains don&#x27;t last forever, and eventually you have to replace them completely rather than just doing normal maintenance, but that only happens every few decades. If you spread out the replacement, it&#x27;s not so bad, but I suspect many streetcar companies didn&#x27;t bother doing that through the 20s since they were still relatively new (and 30 years counts as &quot;relatively new&quot; for tracks). But then the Depression hit and funds became hard to come by, followed by WWII which led to a surge in ridership but a shortage of materials. By the end of the war, not only were streetcars facing increasing competition from cars driving on new highways, the systems were also physically worn out and needed to be totally replaced. Indeed, this is exactly what happened to the Pacific Electric&#x27;s Long Beach line, just with a gap of 29 years between closing the old line and opening the shiny new one in exactly the same place.