At its height in the 1920s, Buffalo’s tram system had 26 lines, most of which had frequencies of every 8 min or better (with the Main St line having 3-min headways). Tram lines (also known as “streetcars” or “light rail”) radiated in all directions from Buffalo’s downtown, centered on Niagara Sq. Crosstown and orbital lines meant there was connection not just to-and-from downtown, but between all parts of the city, with services operating late into the evening. While Buffalonians of all races and classes resented the greed of the system’s private operator (the International Railway Co.), Buffalo’s growth would not have been possible without the mass urban mobility which the network provided.

By the 50s—even before Buffalo’s economic fortunes had begun to reverse—the system had been entirely dismantled, another victim of freeway construction and urban renewal. In cities around the country, new freeways and suburbanization led to an influx of automobiles on legacy infrastructure. This convinced many of the need to remove what were at the time viewed as obsolete rail systems. Moreover, because trams generally served the redlined areas directly adjacent to downtowns, there was little political will to revitalize systems which were of the most use to those in "blighted" areas (aka people of color and recent immigrants). In Buffalo the system was entirely eliminated, replaced with infrequent bus service that became worse and worse as the city’s tax base dried up due to white flight.

While the conspiratorial actions of GM and National City Lines did indeed play a role in the dismantling of many cities' public transit systems, more impactful was suburban and governmental antipathy toward the city in general. Mass transit and diverse urban centers are a thing of the past, the thinking went; the car and the (white) suburb is the future. In addition, there was resentment from all classes towards the private transit companies, known for corruption. Rather than public takeover, when traction companies went bankrupt most cities simply dismantled their tram systems. Today, American cities spend billions recreating a small fraction of the systems they destroyed 50 yrs ago.