Austin Wu grew up in Cedar Rapids and is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Public Health. In his spare time he has studied local history and urban design. Follow him on Twitter @theaustinwu.

A slide from a presentation Canadian urban planner Jennifer Keesmaat gave at the Academy of Urban Design for Living has stuck with me ever since I saw it on Twitter. It dates to the twilight of the Before Times (May 23, 2019) and reads:

HARD TRUTHS

Technology won’t save us (sorry AV’s).

Innovations are not required.

Solutions we seek for the future

can be found in principles of the past.

THE RISE AND FALL OF INTERURBANS

The poor state of public transit in the U.S. today is often attributed to an inherent fact of geography or divine providence. But a century ago, an American would have been able to visit towns large and small alike across the Midwest on a type of electrified train known as an interurban.

Somewhat of a cross between a streetcar and a heavy intercity train with dedicated carriages and locomotives, the heyday of the interurbans in the U.S. was in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. So many dotted the country that it was possible to travel from Chicago to Boston almost entirely by hopping from one interurban line to another.

Almost all initially created by private venture, most interurbans were in poor shape, both physically and financially, by the 1930s. The companies had at times expanded too quickly and faced competition from intercity buses and private cars, which had the benefit of running on government-funded highways, whereas the interurban firms were wholly responsible for upkeep on the track.

Only three interurban lines are in active service in the U.S. today: The Indiana South Shore Line and CTA Yellow Line, both in the Chicago area, and the SEPTA Norristown High Speed Line, in the Philadelphia area.

WHEN CRANDIC OUTPERFORMED TODAY’S TRANSIT OPTIONS

All of Iowa’s interurban lines are long gone. One of the state’s most prominent was the CRANDIC, which ran from 1904 to 1953. It was named for the towns it served the most: Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

When I was a student at the University of Iowa trying to make it home to Cedar Rapids without a car, options were fairly limited (and still are). Until October 2018, the only way to do so (besides carpooling with a friend) was to take a twice-daily Burlington Trailways bus from the Court Street Transportation Center in Iowa City about two-thirds of the way to the Eastern Iowa Airport, then transfer to a city bus which ended in downtown Cedar Rapids.

With the combination of waiting and walking along Lippisch Place at the airport, which does not have a sidewalk, the whole experience cost around $15 and took about two hours, compared to a drive time of around 30-40 minutes over the same distance. (I timed it once as an experiment in our transportation system.)

The 380 Express is much nicer. It costs about a fifth the above price if buying a pass, and this figure is cut in half again if taking into account the 50 percent discount provided for University of Iowa students, staff, and faculty. It ran quite a bit more frequently than the Trailways bus (which was intended for longer distances to the north). When on time, the 380 Express ran the distance between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids in about an hour—still quite a bit slower than driving, but manageable.

However, even this was a far cry from the level of service the CRANDIC interurban once provided. I created this table using a CRANDIC timetable from 1940:

	CRANDIC Interurban, 1940	380 Express, 2022
Propulsion	Electrified	Diesel fuel
First service to Iowa City	4:50 am	4:52 am
Last service to Iowa City	11:00 pm	7:13 pm
First service to Cedar Rapids	5:50 am	5:49 am
Last service to Cedar Rapids	12:01 am	8:04 pm
Weekend service	Yes, reduced hours on Sunday	No
Number of scheduled stops	11, plus request stops and optional door-to-door taxi	4 – 5, depending on time of day
Connections to other intercity service	Yes, to other intercity train services	Trailways bus in Iowa City
Total trip time	55 minutes	51-57 minutes
Right-of-way	Mixed with freight, grade crossings	None dedicated
Combined area population	122,333	383,153
Complimentary Wi-Fi	No	Yes

And thus lies the curious case of public transit in the U.S. Even with a higher population and great advances in infrastructure technologies, the level of service has declined precipitously. Options the CRANDIC interurban once provided (weekend service, connectivity late at night, and access to stops between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids) are no longer available if one does not have a car or is not sober, able-bodied, or old enough to drive.

THE DECLINE OF CRANDIC

The CRANDIC line was established in 1904 under the auspices of the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway and Light Company, with the company initially offering intercity passenger, streetcar, and freight services, all on electrified trains. The historic remnants of this can be seen in the power lines that follow the path of the railroad today, long after the electric-powered trains that once used them have disappeared.

The company demonstrated its ingenuity in 1936, when it began offering door-to-door service from its Cedar Rapids and Iowa City stations via taxi. A 1995 documentary about the line claims that the taxi service increased ridership by 59.8 percent and revenues by 10.9 percent within a year, and advertisements suggest that the taxi service was still being offered around 1950.

Amidst the rationing of fuel and rubber during the Second World War, ridership on the CRANDIC line peaked in the mid-1940s, with up to 32 daily trips and speeds reaching up to 90 mph (144.8 km/h). However, postwar prosperity doomed the CRANDIC’s passenger service. Ridership cratered when people increasingly used private automobiles for transportation.

The final day of the CRANDIC interurban was on May 30, 1953. A bus franchise initially operated by CRANDIC provided public transportation on the same route.

Compared to many American interurbans, the CRANDIC line was successful. Notably, unlike most American interurbans, CRANDIC still survives as a railroad company and retains most of its original right-of-way, albeit as one exclusively operating diesel locomotives for freight service.

The CRANDIC line has generated a great deal of interest among rail fans and local history enthusiasts in the Corridor. A quick Google search will reveal photo albums, memorabilia, stories, and other artifacts of the railway. However, I found that in spite of this, there was scant information on where the stops on the line actually were – an important piece of information to know in understanding how people actually used the interurban.

In a series of articles for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, and a presentation at a virtual public transit conference, I used historic photographs, maps, and other documents to map out the route of the CRANDIC line, viewable here.

PROSPECTS FOR REVIVING CRANDIC AS TRANSIT

Even after a century’s worth of development in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area, the CRANDIC line still has remarkable potential to become a transit-oriented corridor again. Some points along the map I find particularly noteworthy:

• The interurban’s downtown Cedar Rapids stop is in exactly the same location as the Cedar Rapids terminus for the 380 Express today
• The location of the interurban’s Konigsmark stop by the rental car return lot of the Eastern Iowa Airport
• The interurban’s scheduled stop in Swisher, and the potential for intercity public transit to link town, country, and city alike together
• The interurban’s Cou Falls stop at what is now the Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area, and the potential for “transit to trails” to make natural spaces accessible without driving
• The passage of the interurban line through North Liberty, the University of Iowa’s Oakdale campus (formerly a state tuberculosis sanatorium), and Coralville areas, which have witnessed rapid auto-oriented sprawl in recent years, but still holds potential for sustainable transit-oriented growth along the railroad
• Stops in Iowa City both for downtown (at what is now the College St. entrance to the Old Capitol Mall) and the University of Iowa campus (at Hubbard Park)

If the interurban seems so great, a natural question to ask is: have people tried to bring it back? The project has been studied at least five times over the past sixteen years:

Year	Proposal description	Estimated capital costs	Adjustment for inflation (2021 dollars)
2006	Iowa City – Eastern Iowa Airport	$35.3 million	$48.8 million
2015	Iowa City – Eastern Iowa Airport (light rail)	$860 million – $1.3 billion	$1.01 – $1.53 million
2015	Iowa City – Eastern Iowa Airport (commuter rail)	$250 – $520 million	$294.7 – $613 million
2015	Additional spur at Coralville	$6 – $6.5 million	$7.1 – $7.7 million
2016	Iowa City – North Liberty	$40 million	$46.2 million
2017	Iowa City – Cedar Rapids	$328-$683 million	$371 – $772.4 million
2017	Iowa City – Eastern Iowa Airport	$260 – $541 million	$294 – $661.8 million
2017	Iowa City – Eastern Iowa Airport (train) – Cedar Rapids (bus)	$310 – $661 million	$350.6 – $747.55 million
2020	Iowa City – North Liberty	$49 million	$52.5 million

I dedicated my final article in the Press-Citizen to assessing those cost estimates, relative to the alternative (widening I-80 and I-380) as transportation needs continue to grow in the corridor. Here is an adapted version of the relevant passage:

Immediately apparent here is how high projected costs have become for any iteration of interurban rail in the corridor since 2006, far in excess of what could be suggested by inflation. The degree to which this could be attributed to the various reasons why building infrastructure in the US is now so expensive is out of my immediate purview, but worthy of studying in its own right.

Although even the most optimistic projections seem like steep numbers, they must be looked at in the context of other intercity transportation project costs between the two cities – namely, costs borne by projects related to the portions of I-80 and I-380 between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. At the time of writing, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) is currently undertaking the construction of a new interchange between I-80 and I-380/Route 218 and widening portions of both highways several miles in all directions from the interchange. Furthermore, the state DOT has been contemplating the widening of I-380 to six lanes the rest of the way from North Liberty to Cedar Rapids – a de facto confirmation that barring unexpected opposition this widening will happen sooner or later.

In addition to the headaches and congestion brought upon by construction (expected to last until 2025 for the interchange alone), both of these projects are also estimated to incur serious financial costs, some of which have already been borne out. Reporting from the Cedar Rapids Gazette this year suggests that the new interchange and associate road widening is estimated to cost at least $387 million in total, while the Corridor Business Journal puts the cost of widening the rest of I-380 to “about $220 million” in 2019 (around $245.4 million in the current year), for a total of around $632.4 million in all. This is admittedly lower than many of the high-end estimates for rail listed in the table above, but also quite a bit higher than most low-end estimates for commuter rail between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

So although the most expensive rail options are more expensive than the figure given for comparable highway construction, most figures for reviving the CRANDIC line come in below the figures associated with comparable highways, even though costs for the latter are almost always accepted as inevitable costs for infrastructure in the US. At least some of this can be chalked up to how transportation projects are funded in the US, and how funding for roads and automobile infrastructure almost always take precedence over rail and public transit.

Since the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956, 90 percent of Interstate construction costs are footed by the federal government, with only the remaining 10 percent covered by state. By comparison, public transit projects must go through a gauntlet of “highly competitive” grant programs which cannot exceed 50 percent of the project’s total cost, with local governments usually chipping in a portion well in excess of that. These funding opportunities (or lack thereof) are detailed most extensively in the 2015 feasibility study, which is linked in the table above.

Using the figures from earlier, the 90/10 federal/state split for all Interstate costs places federal costs for the combined I-80/380 interchange and I-380 widening at around $569.2 million, compared to around $63.2 million in state costs. By comparison, the most optimistic 50/50 federal/local split for a $594 million commuter rail system (using a higher-end estimate) only has the federal government picking up $297 million, with the remaining $297 million being split among various undefined “local entities”, not just the state DOT. It is through these machinations that a public transit system which is less expensive in aggregate compared to expanding highways ends up costing more locally, at least in strict dollars.

The cost of building infrastructure does not exist in a vacuum however, but rather in relation to what else society has deemed worthy of building (or not). In the case of transportation, it is clear that preference is given to supporting cars over more sustainable modes such as rail. This is not simply a matter of strict dollars either. The construction of Interstate highways through cities (as is the case with I-380 through Cedar Rapids) has borne costs far in excess of numbers on a spreadsheet. As is the case with many American cities, the construction of I-380 resulted in increased noise and pollution where the Interstate runs through, the demolition of several blocks’ worth of buildings, and the destruction of neighborhoods in Cedar Rapids, including the historically Hispanic “Little Mexico” near St. Luke’s Hospital and the Cargill plant nearby – something that can never be said about the railroad.

The urban sprawl in the suburbs north of Iowa City and on the margins of Cedar Rapids, particularly in the northern part of town, has also been aided and abetted by the Interstate, further entrenching a local dependence on automobiles for transportation and magnifying the difficulties of improving public transit in the region. Especially given the outsize role that cars now play in American carbon emissions (the EPA estimates that transportation is the single largest source of carbon emissions in the US, which in turn is largely ‘driven’ by personal cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, and the like), public officials should be doing everything in their power to reduce vehicle miles traveled rather than give quarter to one of the chief contributors to anthropogenic climate change in this country.

Finally, it is worth noting that widening highways almost never reduces traffic congestion – to the contrary, it usually, paradoxically, makes it worse. There are many people out there who can explain this tendency better than I can (including some local folks), but essentially the long and short of it is that adding capacity to a road leads to more people driving and car-centric development by that road, within a few years erasing any congestion relief initially brought upon by the road widening in a condition known as induced demand.

Back to the original question of whether a new CRANDIC passenger line is too expensive to justify – perhaps under current funding structures, the strict dollar amount would be too great for local governments compared to state and federal highways like I-80/380 and Route 218. However, fault for this lies not in the trains, but rather in archaic appropriations structures which continually favor automobility over public transit, at the expense of our cities, neighborhoods, environment, and ultimately, our quality of life.”

This January, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported on the 2020 feasibility study, in light of local officials voicing support for a project within those bounds. The study only investigated reviving passenger rail service along the path of the CRANDIC from Iowa City to North Liberty. In addition to the limited distance, a revival of the interurban along these lines would have slower speeds, no service past 7 pm, and still rely on fossil fuels (diesel) for propulsion, rather than electric wires, which could harness Iowa’s growing renewable energy generation, mostly from wind.

While some cautious optimism about the interurban’s revival would be justifiable, there is also reason to be skeptical—not only because the “feasibility study-public discussion-nothing happens” cycle has been going on for at least sixteen years, but also because the proposals would offer service in many ways inferior to the interurban that ran 80 years ago.

The most recent report on transportation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscores the tripartite importance of (1) denser, mixed-use development where people can walk, bicycle, or use transit in between home, work and leisure spaces, (2) improved public transit networks, and (3) electrification of bus and rail lines in order to rapidly reduce private car usage, and by extension, emissions from transportation.

In eastern Iowa, the CRANDIC interurban could plausibly work as a skeleton through which to achieve all three goals, especially given the preservation of the railroad right-of-way and electric infrastructure along one of the fastest-growing areas of the state.

However, even if the plan to resurrect the interurban takes place, the aforementioned limits do not bode well for the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City corridor helping to reach the IPCC’s goal of halving carbon emissions by 2030.

There are a few extra routes to take in studying intercity public transportation in Iowa. The CRANDIC interurban was far from the only electrified passenger interurban line active in Iowa during the early 20^th century. Other notable ones are the Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern Railway which ran from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Waverly (part of which is now the Cedar Valley Nature Trail), and the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern Railway, which ran from Des Moines to Ankeny, Huxley, Boone, Fort Dodge, and Webster City, with spurs to Rockwell City and Ames. A section of that route, including the high bridge above the Des Moines River, is part of the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad today.

The demise of Iowa’s interurban railways Iowa did not immediately end public intercity transportation in the state. For several years after, intercity buses (sometimes run by the interurban companies) took over discontinued routes. The CRANDIC line is one such example: the train was replaced by a bus franchise initially operated by CRANDIC itself. I have been unable to determine how that venture ended.

Funding formulas may have contributed to the initial success of intercity buses. While buses run on government-funded roads, U.S. railroads are mostly privately constructed and maintained. Iowa’s intercity bus network, while still extant, is but a shell of what it once was. Its future survival should be part of discussions about rural connectivity and reducing the state’s transportation emissions.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the story of the CRANDIC interurban is that accessible, affordable, environmentally friendly public transportation which connects urban areas with natural spaces and small towns is not a fantasy of the future, but rather achievable with technologies that have now been available for over a century. The solution to traffic and transportation emissions is not more highway lanes or hyperloops or Teslas in tunnels (sorry, Elon), but instead can be found in principles of the past, like electrified trains.

Iowa’s bygone interurbans are not just historical oddities or items for rail fans to lament; they are pathways to reimagining freedom of movement for all and environmentally sustainable transit-oriented development in Iowa.

Author’s note: This writing draws on series of articles about the CRANDIC interurban I wrote for the Iowa City Press-Citizen last summer (see here, here, and here), a presentation I delivered this January at a public transit conference, as well as a 1995 documentary about the CRANDIC railroad, which a Press-Citizen reader digitized and sent to me.