A Transitional Gains Trap: How City-Backed Transportation Monopolies in the Early Twentieth Century Damaged Economic Mobility for the Next Hundred Years

A common explanation for low economic mobility among the poor points to public bus systems that have inconvenient access to jobs. We explore the extent to which these fixed-route systems are a legacy of a century-old transitional gains trap. The trap formed in the early 1900s as local governments secured legislation to protect streetcar companies from so-called unfair competition from jitneys, the nation's first taxis offering rapid and flexible service. The paper examines how allegiance to fixed-route systems in rail and bus routes hampered economic mobility more than a century later. It examines the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in detail.