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48-593: The BCRR was incorporated on December 17, 1853, with capital of $ 2,500,000, a large sum in those days. Its first line, the Myrtle Avenue Line , was the first horsecar line in Brooklyn, and opened on July 3, 1854. The line operated from Fulton Ferry via Fulton Street and Myrtle Avenue to the former stagecoach stables at Marcy Avenue. The New York State Legislature permitted it to reduce its capital to $ 1,000,000 in 1855. The following lines were operated by

96-668: A capital of $ 2,500,000 (equivalent to $ 92,000,000 in 2023). Its first line, the Myrtle Avenue Line, was the first horsecar line in Brooklyn; it opened on July 3, 1854. The initial line began at Fulton Ferry , and ran southeast on Fulton Street and east on Myrtle Avenue to a temporary terminus at Marcy Avenue. An extension to Broadway , then known as Division Avenue, at Bushwick was completed in December 1854. Myrtle Avenue itself had only been extended to Broadway from Cripplebush Road (today's Bedford Avenue) in 1852. On

144-595: A design of a partly enclosed double-decker carriage hauled by two horses. The last horse-drawn tram was retired from London in 1915. Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century. The last horse used for shunting on British Railways was retired on 21 February 1967 in Newmarket, Suffolk . In the United States the very first streetcar appeared in New Orleans in 1832, operated by

192-552: A resolution to defer the planned service cuts until after July 1, 1955, pending additional ridership checks. The Myrtle Avenue bus line had been located under the Myrtle Avenue Elevated for its entire length since the elevated line opened in 1889. Bus service along the corridor took 34 minutes, 11 minutes longer than the elevated trains. On October 4, 1969, the Myrtle Avenue Elevated west of

240-576: A separate company until June 1, 1929, when the BMT formed the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation to consolidate all of its surface operations in one operating company, which finally ended the corporate existence of the Brooklyn City. Myrtle Avenue surface line The B54 is a bus route on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn , New York City . The line travels between Downtown Brooklyn in

288-529: A special transfer was given to B54 riders between the Jay Street–Borough Hall and Myrtle Avenue–Broadway subway stations, allowing travelers who had used the Myrtle Avenue Elevated to make the connection via the bus. Following the September 11 attacks , additional security measures were implemented at MetroTech Center , including the rerouting of B54 service out of MetroTech. On July 1, 2007,

336-499: A stage coach line that had been operated by Seymour L. Husted. The 3.43-mile-long (5.52 km) line was double-tracked and took 33 to 37 minutes for horsecars to traverse. The route was originally plied by fifteen horsecars, each pulled by four horses. The fare was originally four cents. In August 1879, the City Railroad extended the line one block east from Broadway to Bushwick Avenue , and acquired trackage rights over

384-678: A wheel to travel along the wire. In late 1887 and early 1888, using his trolley system, Sprague installed the first successful large electric street railway system in Richmond, Virginia . Long a transportation obstacle, the hills of Richmond included grades of over 10%, and were an excellent proving ground for acceptance of the new technology in other cities. Within a year, the economy of electric power had replaced more costly horsecars in many cities. By 1889, 110 electric railways incorporating Sprague's equipment had been begun or planned on several continents. Many large metropolitan lines lasted well into

432-461: Is bordered on the south by the intersection of Myrtle and Wyckoff Avenues and on the north by St. Nicholas Avenue. The change provided easier transfers between the B54, the subway and the other five bus routes using the terminal. On November 7, 2010, direct service through MetroTech was restored as westbound service was rerouted off Flatbush Avenue Extension and Tillary Street, and onto Duffield Street and

480-541: Is still used today by the Toronto streetcar system and three lines of the Toronto subway . The Metropolitan Street Railway operated a horsecar line in then-suburban North Toronto from 1885 until the line was electrified in 1890; this horsecar line also used Toronto gauge. The first horse-drawn trams in India ran a 2.4-mile (3.9 km) distance between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street on 24 February 1873. The service

528-535: The Broadway station was abandoned, the bus line became the only transportation option on Myrtle Avenue west of Broadway. Bus service was increased by 700%, with service running as frequently as every 2.5 minutes during rush hours and every 20 minutes overnight. Some of the increased service was provided by new short-turn trips that ran between Downtown Brooklyn and Broadway, with a terminal loop of Myrtle Avenue, Lewis Avenue, Stockton Street and Broadway. In addition,

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576-813: The Bushwick Railroad 's Bushwick Avenue Line (which used Myrtle Avenue east of Bushwick Avenue) to Myrtle Avenue Park in Ridgewood, Queens . At Ridgewood, connections could be made to two steam dummy lines to local cemeteries—the Cypress Hills Line , and later the Lutheran Line . The City Railroad acquired these cemetery lines on July 27, 1888, with the lease of the Bushwick Railroad. Myrtle Avenue horse cars were replaced with electric trolleys by July 1893. The line

624-698: The Pontchartrain Railroad Company, followed by those in 1832 on the New York and Harlem Railroad in New York City . The latter cars were designed by John Stephenson of New Rochelle, New York , and constructed at his company in New York City. The earliest streetcars used horses and sometimes mules, usually two as a team, to haul the cars. Rarely, other animals were tried, including humans in emergency circumstances. By

672-587: The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in Wales , using specially designed carriages on an existing tramline built for horse-drawn freight dandies . Fare-paying passengers were carried on a line between Oystermouth , Mumbles and Swansea Docks from 1807. The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad (1809) carried passengers although its main purpose was freight. In spite of its early start, it took many years for horse-drawn streetcars to become widely acceptable across Britain;

720-877: The Vanderbilt Avenue Line and Culver Line trackage to Coney Island. The Myrtle Avenue Line was combined with the Court Street Line , which had also used the Brooklyn Bridge elevated tracks, to form the Myrtle Avenue and Court Street Line on April 3, 1938. This new route began at Garnett Street and Hamilton Avenue in Gowanus , and ran north on Court Street to Borough Hall and east on Myrtle Avenue to Palmetto Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Ridgewood. In February 1944, service

768-540: The Yucatan , which sported over 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) of such lines). Surviving examples may be found in both Brazil and the Yucatán, and some examples in the latter still use horsecars. Problems with horsecars included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which

816-539: The České Budějovice - Linz railway . Europe saw a proliferation of horsecar use for new tram services from the mid-1860s, with many towns building new networks. Tropical plantations (for products such as henequen and bananas ) made extensive use of animal-powered trams for both passengers and freight, often employing the Decauville narrow-gauge portable track system. In some cases these systems were very extensive and evolved into interurban tram networks (as in

864-673: The American George Francis Train first introduced them to Birkenhead Corporation Tramways ' predecessor in Birkenhead in 1860 but was jailed for "breaking and injuring" the highway when he next tried to lay the first tram tracks on the roads of London . An 1870 Act of Parliament overcame these legal obstacles by defining responsibilities and for the next three decades many local tramway companies were founded, using horse-drawn carriages, until replaced by cable , steam or electric traction. Many companies adopted

912-789: The BCRR at the time of its 1893 lease to the BHRR: In 1893, the Long Island Traction Company (LIT), a holding company , acquired the Brooklyn Heights Railroad (BHRR), operator of a short cable car line on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights and used this latter company as its operating arm. The BHRR obtained a 999-year operating lease on the Brooklyn City the same year. By this time the Brooklyn City operated 27 streetcar lines . The LIT

960-519: The BRT was bankrupt, the Brooklyn City was declared solvent, and its charter and separate corporate existence were resumed. The lease by the Brooklyn Heights was ended and the lines the BCRR controlled in 1893 and more became its lines again on October 19, 1919. The BCRR had its own crews, cars and carbarns, and even purchased new equipment in its own name, though the overall planning and management

1008-541: The Brooklyn City. Patrons may have noticed this in subtle ways, such as that streetcar transfers had the letters "B.C.R.R." imprinted on their face. In 1919, the BRT went into receivership as the result of a number of factors, such as the serious inflation of World War I, and not helped by the Malbone Street Wreck on the Brighton Line , which killed at least 93 people on November 1, 1918. Though

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1056-647: The MTA proposed reducing bus frequencies along the B54 route in July 2019, prompting demonstrations from opponents. The changes took effect in September 2019, in spite of riders' complaints that B38 buses were frequently overcrowded even before the service cuts. Horse car A horsecar , horse-drawn tram , horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered (usually horse ) tram or streetcar. The horse-drawn tram (horsecar)

1104-547: The MetroTech Roadway. The change was possible because the tenant that required the security measures was leaving MetroTech; it was expected to improve reliability and provide faster service to the subway. On April 8, 2012, eastbound bus service was rerouted off of Fulton Mall, Fulton Street and Ashland Place. Instead, bus service continued via Jay Street, Tillary Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension before returning to Myrtle Avenue. In response to declining ridership,

1152-562: The Ridgewood Intermodal Terminal at Palmetto Street and Wyckoff Avenue near the Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues station in Ridgewood . Westbound service continues via Myrtle Avenue until Lawrence Street, where buses make a left. Buses then make a right onto MetroTech Roadway and another right onto Jay Street to get back to the terminal. The Brooklyn City Railroad was incorporated on December 17, 1853, with

1200-681: The early twentieth century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on the Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. Toronto 's horse-drawn streetcar operations ended in 1891. In other countries animal-powered tram services often continued well into

1248-463: The end of the 19th century the company owned 166 tram cars, 1000 horses, seven steam locomotives and 19 miles of tram tracks. In 1900, electrification of the tramway and reconstruction of its tracks to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) ( standard gauge ) began. In 1902, the first electric tramcar in India ran from Esplanade to Kidderpore on 27 March and on 14 June from Esplanade to Kalighat . The Bombay Tramway Company

1296-634: The entire Brooklyn section of Myrtle Avenue. The B54's western terminus is at Jay Street and Willoughby Street near the Jay Street–MetroTech station in Downtown Brooklyn . From here, eastbound service heads north on Jay Street, east on Tillary Street and south on Flatbush Avenue Extension before heading east on Myrtle Avenue. Service continues along Myrtle Avenue until it turns left onto Gates Avenue. Buses then make right turns onto St. Nicholas Avenue and Palmetto Street before terminating at

1344-535: The entirety of Myrtle Avenue with horse cars . They were replaced with electric trolleys by July 1893, and then by the two city-owned bus routes on July 17, 1949. The Myrtle Avenue Line is distinct from the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line , which is a separate subway line that also operates along a portion of Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn . Until 1969, the BMT line also ran on elevated tracks above

1392-428: The horsecars between 1892 and 1894. The Toronto Street Railway created Toronto's unique broad gauge of 4 ft  10 + 7 ⁄ 8  in ( 1,495 mm ). The streets were unpaved, and a step rail was employed. The horsecars had flanged wheels and ran on the upper level of the step. Ordinary wagons and carriages ran on the broad lower step inside. This necessitated a wider gauge. This broad Toronto gauge

1440-468: The mid-1880s, there were 415 street railway companies in the US operating over 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of track and carrying 188 million passengers per year using horsecars. By 1890 New Yorkers took 297 horsecar rides per capita per year. The average street car horse had a life expectancy of about two years. The first horse-drawn rail cars in Continental Europe were operated from 1828 by

1488-752: The new elevated structure on the Brooklyn Bridge on September 28, 1908; the lines accessed the structure using the Sands Street elevated station, on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. Cars returned to the old route along Myrtle Avenue and Fulton Street to the split for the new structure at Tillary Street. A separate summer-only service, called the Myrtle-Culver Line, also ran along the Myrtle Avenue surface line. It connected Ridgewood with Coney Island . It ran west on Myrtle Avenue from Ridgewood to Vanderbilt Avenue, and turned south there, using

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1536-419: The omnibus, because the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on iron or steel rails (usually grooved from 1852 on ) allowed the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort than the omnibus, and gave a smoother ride. The horse-drawn streetcar combined the low cost, flexibility, and safety of animal power with the efficiency, smoothness, and all-weather capability of a rail track. Animal power at

1584-584: The rest of the city began to be replaced by buses, particularly after the unification of the city's three primary transit companies (including the BMT) under municipal operations in June 1940. On June 30, 1949, the New York City Board of Estimate approved the full motorization of the Myrtle Avenue and Court Street Line with buses. The line was officially replaced by city-owned buses on July 17, 1949, and

1632-526: The route was split in two. Service along Myrtle Avenue was designated B54 ("B" being the designation for buses based in Brooklyn), and the line along Court Street was designated the B66 . The eastern terminal of the B54 was moved to Myrtle Avenue and Palmetto Street, and it western terminal was changed to Myrtle Avenue and Washington Avenue. Service on the B54 was initially provided with ten buses, while B66 service

1680-418: The second day of the horsecar's operation, a boy was injured while surfing outside one of the vehicles; author Brian Cudahy described this as a “sport” that would soon become quite popular with Brooklyn youth". The Brooklyn City Railroad had planned to build a system of several horsecar lines across Brooklyn, but was only able to start horsecar service along Myrtle Avenue after buying the operating rights of

1728-498: The streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles (19 km) a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. Horsecars were largely replaced by electric-powered streetcars following the invention by Frank J. Sprague of an overhead trolley system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires . His spring-loaded trolley pole used

1776-427: The time was seen as safer than steam power in that early locomotives frequently suffered from boiler explosions . Rails were seen as all-weather because streets of the time might be poorly paved, or not paved at all, allowing wagon wheels to sink in mud during rain or snow. In 1861, Toronto Street Railway horsecars replaced horse-drawn omnibuses as a public transit mode in Toronto . Electric streetcars later replaced

1824-529: The travel path of the B54's terminal loop in Downtown Brooklyn was reversed to improve traffic flow and to provide faster service to the Jay Street subway station. Service started terminating at the newly opened Ridgewood Intermodal Terminal, located on Palmetto Street, on August 20, 2010. Palmetto Street was closed to all traffic except for New York City Transit buses and deliveries. The terminal

1872-627: The west and Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues station in the east. The B54 operates from MTA New York City Bus's Fresh Pond Depot in Ridgewood, Queens . The route serves only the section of Myrtle Avenue within Brooklyn; the section within Queens is served by the Q55 bus. The B54 replaced the Myrtle Avenue Line , the first streetcar line in Brooklyn, which was built by the Brooklyn City Railroad and opened in 1854. This line initially served

1920-463: Was an early form of public rail transport , which developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s , using the newly improved iron or steel rail or ' tramway '. They were local versions of the stagecoach lines and picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route, without the need to be pre-hired. Horsecars on tramlines were an improvement over

1968-460: Was discontinued on 20 November of that year. The Calcutta Tramway Company was formed and registered in London on 22 December 1880. Metre-gauge horse-drawn tram tracks were laid from Sealdah to Armenian Ghat via Bowbazar Street, Dalhousie Square and Strand Road. The route was inaugurated by Viceroy Ripon on 1 November 1880. In 1882, steam locomotives were deployed experimentally to haul tram cars. By

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2016-772: Was extended over the Brooklyn Bridge to Park Row Terminal in Lower Manhattan on February 15, 1898, along with three others, including the Graham Avenue Line . Cars reached the bridge by turning off Myrtle Avenue onto Washington Street, on trackage originally built for the DeKalb Avenue Line , and turning into Sands Street on trackage from the Graham Avenue Line. The Myrtle Avenue Line was also one of seven that were moved to

2064-611: Was foreclosed and reorganized in 1895 as the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), which soon acquired, through lease or stock ownership, most of the trolley and rapid transit lines in Brooklyn. The BRT (also known as "the rapid transit company" during its years of acquisition) became the public face of transportation in Brooklyn. Nevertheless, the BRT operated all of its lines through its operating companies, some of which were created just for that purpose, and others that were leased or subsidiaries, such as

2112-589: Was provided with eight buses. On September 17, 1954, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) approved a plan to cut Brooklyn bus service by 10%, including the elimination of B54 service between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. to cut costs. Free transfers would have been provided between the B53 and B57 to make up for the loss of evening and overnight B54 service. On January 20, 1955, the NYCTA approved

2160-499: Was rerouted via Navy Street, Ashland Place and Willoughby Street instead of Jay Street and Adams Street. On July 27, 1944, service was rerouted in both directions via Adams Street between Willoughby Street and Myrtle Avenue. After elevated railroads stopped operating on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1944, the trolley routes began using the former elevated railroad tracks. Beginning in the 1920s, many streetcar lines in Queens , Brooklyn , and

2208-787: Was set up in 1873. After a contract was signed between the Bombay Tramway Company, the municipality and the Stearns and Kitteredge company, the Bombay Presidency enacted the Bombay Tramways Act, 1874 licensing the company to run a horsecar tram service in the city. On 9 May 1874 the first horse-drawn carriage made its début in the city, plying the Colaba – Pydhone via Crawford Market , and Bori Bunder to Pydhonie via Kalbadevi routes. The initial fare

2256-489: Was still effectively with the BRT. A negative consequence for passengers was that BCRR lines no longer issued transfers to the lines still with the BRT, and vice versa. When the BRT was reorganized as the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) in 1923, the former BRT companies gradually were brought out of receivership. Nevertheless, the Brooklyn City did not become part of the BMT, but remained

2304-418: Was three annas (15 paise pre-decimalisation), and no tickets were issued. As the service became increasingly popular, the fare was reduced to two annas (10 pre-decimalisation paise). Later that year, tickets were issued to curb increasing ticket-less travel. Stearns and Kitteredge reportedly had a stable of 1,360 horses over the lifetime of the service. The first tram services in the world were started by

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