Tracks in the Streets
Tracks in the Streets
The citizens of Baltimore largely supported the B&O at its inception, but public consensus soon fractured as Baltimoreans faced, for the first time in history, the question of how to integrate railroad facilities with urban space. This chapter looks at the engineering and political challenges involved in embedding the infrastructure of long-distance communications within the urban environment. Railroad trains, with their fixed paths and frictionless movement, fit uneasily in an urban streetscape characterized by ad hoc traffic patterns. The decision in the 1830s to place railroad tracks in the center of major city thoroughfares prompted questions about urban mobility, the right to the city, and corporate power.
Keywords: infrastructure, urban space, mobility, traffic, streets, slavery, monopoly, municipal government
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
