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 socalled 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.