>>1550326Not really neoliberalism in this case at all.
Basically every streetcar/commuter train system was private, and therefore only grew before the automobile gained popularity, and only continued to exist where it could either compete with it directly, or where the local government was willing to run it at a loss.
The El and Metra in Chicago survived solely because the city declared it too essential to fail and bought it out, and there was never strong enough opposition for the system to be systematically abandoned over time.
Very few areas viewed streetcars with a similar necessity, since the logic was (and is) that most people would prefer motor vehicles. Basically every town/city abandoned their system by the 1970s, and there wasn't much outcry about it at the time.
