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The trolley tracks about to be excavated from West Fifth Avenue in the 10th Ward have been a pain in the rear --- sometimes literally --- for local motorists for decades.

Embedded in the concrete under the blacktop road surface, they wiggled and twisted, causing potholes to reliably appear every spring.

But the tracks, last used by Pittsburgh Railways streetcars in 1963, were an aggravation to some people long before they were paved over.

. . .

Though trolleys are now fondly remembered and even celebrated, in the 1950s they were seen as ugly, clanking dinosaurs and an obstacle to the city's progress.

In his carefully researched 1999 book McKeesport Trolleys: A Piece of the Past, historian Ron Beal argues that most residents of the city and nearby communities "liked the streetcars."

Perhaps, but it's also possible that time has erased from local memories the true condition of some of the trolleys that served McKeesport (and the rest of Allegheny County) in the 1950s and early '60s.

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The trolleys running in daily service in the 1950s weren't the polished gems currently preserved at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington County. Instead, they were working hard for a living. Some of them were rusty, dirty rattletraps, and poor maintenance meant they frequently broke down.

One rider of the 68 streetcar line that linked the city to Pittsburgh via Duquesne and Squirrel Hill called service "disgusting" and "abominable," and begged the state's Public Utility Commission to allow a competing bus line to run the same route.

No wonder the city's outspoken, proudly parochial mayor, Andrew "Greeky" Jakomas, rejoiced when Pittsburgh Railways announced in the summer of 1963 that it would discontinue all McKeesport-area trolley service.

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Jakomas called the end of trolley service on Sept. 1 "a real shot in the arm" for the city.

"Greeky" and other local leaders, including the McKeesport Chamber of Commerce, were also fighting tooth-and-nail against the legislation that authorized creation of the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

People "want to drive their cars," said Jakomas, who gathered 15,000 signatures from the city and 23 neighboring boroughs and townships demanding a referendum on creation of Port Authority. "They don't want to ride public transit. Money, then, should be spent to build access routes to accommodate cars."

. . .

With a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and mounting evidence of global climate change caused by air pollution, that attitude now seems hopelessly naive. But it didn't seem so naive when the Shah was safely in power in Iran, and no one cared if a Chevrolet Bel Air only delivered 12 miles per gallon.

Frankly, if you had a choice in 1963 between driving a Chevy (from "Devie," naturally), or riding a trolley, the choice would have been clear. As early as 1951, one McKeesport rider compared the insides of local streetcars to "spittoons" --- and he was one of the people who liked riding the trolley!

To other people --- especially those trying to park on Downtown's narrow Fifth Avenue --- the streetcars were just a constant aggravation.

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It's worth remembering that the trolley lines of the 1950s weren't like the current South Hills light-rail system. Much of the trolley track was in the same streets shared by cars, trucks and pedestrians, and was subject to the same traffic delays.

But unlike a car or bus, which could be diverted around an accident or a stopped vehicle, a trolley had to go where the tracks were laid. When a streetcar motorman was clanging his bell in front of Balsamo's or Green's or The Famous, it could only mean one thing --- someone had parked too far away from the curb, and the trolley couldn't squeeze past.

On the opposite side of Allegheny County, the burgess of McKees Rocks in 1958 begged Pittsburgh Railways to replace its streetcars with buses, calling trolleys "a public nuisance, old, dirty, slow-moving, antiquated traffic-blockers."

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The problem was that Pittsburgh Railways --- which operated more than 200 buses --- didn't have the money to buy any more, or to maintain its more than 600 trolleys properly. The private, for-profit company went into a death-spiral after World War II.

Despite fare hikes that made Pittsburgh's streetcars among the most expensive to ride in the United States, the system was reportedly losing $3 million to $5 million in some years between 1950 and 1960.

And Pittsburgh's trolley system certainly wasn't suffering alone, according to a 1952 survey by United Press reporters.

"The automobile and suburban living have put most of the nation's municipal transportation systems in the red," UP said. "Whether publicly or privately owned, bus, streetcar, trackless trolley and subway lines in most major cities are losing money."

. . .

In Pittsburgh, those losses translated into maintenance and service cutbacks. Streetcars were run less frequently. They were cleaned less thoroughly. They broke down more often.

"Pittsburgh Railways has been through three bankruptcies," the Post-Gazette noted in 1954. "It is steadily losing patronage and revenue, with the result that its service is deteriorating. In view of that situation, it could hardly be expected to raise capital sufficient to modernize its facilities and improve its service."

By 1963, a consultant hired by Allegheny County reported Pittsburgh Railways was more riders per year at a rate faster than all 30 of the county's privately owned bus companies combined --- 15 times faster, in fact.

"There is every evidence that this defection of passengers ... largely the result of deterioration of service both in quality and quantity, will continue," the consultant told county officials.

. . .

Naturally, complaints poured in throughout the 1950s and '60s. One rider in West Mifflin told the Pittsburgh Press in 1950 that service on the 68 trolley line, connecting McKeesport with Pittsburgh via Homestead and Squirrel Hill, was "inadequate" and "disgusting."

Another, in Lincoln Place, told the Post-Gazette in 1960 that a ride from her home to the Syria Mosque in Oakland took two hours due to trolleys that arrived late or never showed up.

Pittsburgh Railways' service in the Mon-Yough area was "abominable," she said.

Jakomas would eventually make elimination of trolley service in McKeesport almost a one-man crusade, and at the time, only train buffs were truly unhappy.

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In the early part of the 20th century, trolleys had served virtually every neighborhood of the city, running along Jenny Lind Street, Walnut Street and Versailles Avenue, up into Highland Grove and even (for a few years) into Port Vue.

But in 1937, those local trolleys --- mainly run by the West Penn Power Co. --- were dropped due to lack of riders and replaced by privately operated buses. Pittsburgh Railways continued to operate a trolley up Evans Avenue until 1953, when that line, too, was replaced by buses.

That left only three trolley lines running in McKeesport: The 56 line, which connected to Pittsburgh via Second Avenue in Hazelwood; the 68 line; and the 98 line to Glassport. The 68 line disappeared in 1958 when Route 837 was widened and Kennywood Boulevard was constructed, so then there were two.

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To Jakomas, that was two trolley lines too many. In 1960, the city had unveiled plans for a 10-year, $17 million urban renewal program stretching along Fifth Avenue. It included the elimination of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks that cut through the heart of Downtown, and a proposal to create a pedestrian-only shopping mall along part of the street.

But the mall couldn't happen if the streetcars were still banging and clanging through the heart of the city. So Jakomas was delighted when Pittsburgh Railways announced plans to convert the 56 trolley line to buses. (The 98 line to Glassport had been wiped out by a tornado on Aug. 3, and wouldn't return.)

"This will give us a chance to work on the Downtown area," he told the Post-Gazette. "It will help us to dress it up, to add additional on-street parking."

. . .

The pedestrian-only mall on Fifth Avenue turned out to be a disaster. So did the enclosed shopping mall that became the horrible Midtown Plaza.

It's tempting to say that removing the trolleys also was a disaster. The buses that were substituted now seem just as dirty and smelly as the trolleys of 1960, and they can clog traffic, too.

In addition, many cities that retained or reinstalled streetcars have found them effective at clearing congestion and improving property values, and even attracting tourists.

. . .

But it would have been a lot to ask McKeesport officials --- even if they had been visionaries --- to try to save streetcar service. Across the country, the tide of public opinion had firmly shifted against trolleys.

Plus, the elimination of the 56 streetcar had less to do with "Greeky" Jakomas' objections and more to do with the replacement of the Glenwood Bridge.

The new structure was scheduled for completion in 1966, and the cloverleaf interchange on the Hays side of the Monongahela River wasn't designed to accommodate trolley tracks.

Still, we'll wager that three generations of McKeesport-area drivers do wish someone had pulled up the trolley tracks way back when service ended. It wouldn't have made mass transit any better, but it would have saved 47 years of wear-and-tear on cars --- and on buses, too, for that matter.

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