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How far could you get for a few coins back in 1921? Really far. This map covers 200 x 190 miles, and shows Interurban (as opposed to streetcar) routes radiating from Chicago. h/t transitmap.net What happened to them? 👇 🧵

Taras Grescoe 🚇

@taras-grescoe.com

By 1910, the network of interurbans in the US was so dense that a determined commuter could hop interlinked vehicles from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, to Oneonta, NY—a journey of 1,100 miles—exclusively by electric trolley.

Taras Grescoe 🚇

@taras-grescoe.com

Interurbans weren’t city streetcars. They ran 50, 100, even 200 miles out of town, through farm fields and forests, under overhead wires or drawing power from third rails.

Taras Grescoe 🚇

@taras-grescoe.com

Look at where you could go from Detroit. (In theory, could ride to Port Huron, cross the border to Sarnia, ON, then make your way by train to Toronto, Montreal, and on to a transatlantic liner in Halifax.)

8/10/26, 1:54 pm3 reposts13 likes

Taras Grescoe 🚇

@taras-grescoe.com

Within a generation, almost all of the interurbans were gone, tracks torn up, urban dwellers forced into car ownership. So how did it happen—and could something like interurbans come back? I dug into the story in High Speed, my transit and train travel blog: www.highspeed.blog/interurban-n...