Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) Bridge Line & Fare Tokens

The Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) was the main

public transit Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

operator in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, from 1940 to 1968. A

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

, PTC was the successor to the

Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company The Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) was the main public transit operator in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1940 to 1968. A private company, PTC was the successor to the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (PRT), in operation since 19 ...

(PRT), in operation since 1902, and was the immediate predecessor of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).

History

PTC was established on January 1, 1940, by the merger of the PRT and several smaller, then-independent transit companies operating in and near the city. It operated a citywide system of bus, trolley, and

trackless trolley A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

routes, the

Market–Frankford Line The Market–Frankford Line (MFL) (also called the Market–Frankford Subway–Elevated Line (MFSE), the Market–Frankford El (MFE), the El (), or the Blue Line) is one of three rapid transit lines in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; it and the Broad ...

(subway-elevated rail), the

Broad Street Line The Broad Street Line (BSL), also known as the Broad Street subway (BSS), Orange Line, or Broad Line, is a subway line owned by the city of Philadelphia and operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The line r ...

(subway), and the Delaware River Bridge Line (subway-elevated rail to City Hall, Camden, New Jersey, and now part of the

PATCO Speedline The PATCO Speedline (signed in Philadelphia as the Lindenwold Line and also known colloquially as the PATCO High Speed Line) is a rapid transit route operated by the Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO), which runs between Philadelphia, Pe ...

) which became SEPTA's City Transit Division. PTC operated the

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...

lines in urban Philadelphia – principally the Market–Frankford Line and Broad Street Line – leasing their fixed infrastructure from the City of Philadelphia. Most suburban transit lines were operated by other private companies, including the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, known as Red Arrow (trolley lines), the Southern Penn Bus Company (bus lines), and the Philadelphia & Western Railroad (

Norristown Norristown may mean: * Norristown, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Norristown, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Norristown, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Norristown, Pennsylvania Norristown is a municipality with home ...

and Strafford interurban lines). PTC's network also included the Philadelphia trolleybus system, which was much smaller, along with numerous bus lines. Among PTC's first actions was to begin replacing its aging fleet of vehicles. In 1940, the company placed orders for 130

PCC streetcar The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the ...

s, 50

s, and 53

motor bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es. In 1944, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, white PTC workers engaged in a

wildcat strike The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the ...

aimed at preventing the promotion of African American employees to conductors and other positions. The strike ended when President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

ordered troops into the city to run the cars.Everts, Bart
An Anniversary to Forget
2014. ''Hidden City Philadelphia''. Retrieved 2017-12-18. In 1955, majority control of PTC was acquired by the

National City Lines National City Lines, Inc. (NCL) was a public transportation company. The company grew out of the Fitzgerald brothers' bus operations, founded in Minnesota, United States in 1920 as a modest local transport company operating two buses. Part of the ...

holding company, which had a record of replacing trolleys with buses in other cities. NCL followed suit in Philadelphia. In 1954, the PTC trolley system included 45 lines, using more than 1,500 trolley cars. Between 1954 and 1958, three-fourths of the trolley lines were abandoned, and 984 trolley cars had been scrapped, replaced by 1,000 new buses. The

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five coun ...

(SEPTA) was established in 1964, as part of efforts by the Pennsylvania legislature to coordinate government subsidies to various transit and railroad companies in southeastern Pennsylvania. The provision of public transit service was becoming increasingly unprofitable in the 1950s and 1960s, and cities across the country were municipalizing their transit systems or creating regional public transit authorities. SEPTA acquired the Philadelphia Transportation Company in 1968, taking possession of PTC at noon on September 30, 1968. The total price paid to PTC stockholders for the purchase was $47.9 million (equivalent to $ million in ).

History

See also

References

Further reading