Key System

The Key System Railway (or Key System Interurban) was a light-rail system that served the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from the 1900s until its removal in the late 1950s. It was the eastern counterpart to the San Francisco Municipal Railway or ?Muni? streetcar system. The Key System's original service area is now predominantly covered by BART and AC Transit diesel buses. Today, the vast majority of East Bay residents do not realize an extensive light rail system once existed in their communities.

Dismantlement

The system was dismantled in 1958 after National City Lines, a General Motors subsidiary, purchased the system in what many sources allege was a national conspiracy to increase urban dependence on the automobile (see General Motors streetcar conspiracy). State planners anxious to embrace California?s postwar love for the automobile also pushed to have the track across the Bay Bridge and street right-of-ways removed to increase highway and street capacity. AC Transit purchased the system's remaining assets. The rolling stock was sold and shipped off for operation in a major South American city.

Related Topics:
National City Lines - General Motors - General Motors streetcar conspiracy - Automobile - AC Transit

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Signs of the system still remain. The elevated loop at San Francisco's Transbay Transit Terminal still exists, and with some modifications to the original design, is currently used by AC Transit buses to drop off passengers and return to the East Bay as the Key System once did. This will be further modified when the Transbay Terminal is replaced with a new structure scheduled for completion in 2012.

Related Topics:
Transbay Transit Terminal - AC Transit - Bus

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