Creating the District

In 1824, when President Guadalupe Victoria proclaimed Mexico City the young nation's capital, it became part of the newly created federal district, an administrative entity comprised of 12 municipal jurisdictions, including Coyoacán, San Ángel, Tacuba, and Tacubaya, each of which neighbored dozens of smaller, predominantly indigenous villages.Footnote ⁴ Urban and rural spaces, forested wilderness, and extensive bodies of water made up the district's area, then 80 by 64 kilometers within the Basin of Mexico and far from being the concrete leviathan many think of today.Footnote ⁵

The concept of a municipio (municipality) in Mexico has roots that extend deep into the country's history. Mauricio Merino writes, “From the moment that Hernán Cortés decided to establish himself in the Americas, until our time, the municipio has been the territorial and political baseline for all of the forms of government the country has had.”Footnote ⁶ The Mexican federal constitutions of 1824 and 1857, however, did not delineate a clear hierarchy of political authority in the federal district. Whereas most citizens residing in the rest of the country had governors who enforced the laws through a state government with authority over local municipalities, the federal district lacked this structure.Footnote ⁷ Instead, the national government controlled it directly, with the president appointing a governor who worked through the ayuntamiento of Mexico City, which as the largest and most organized political body, became first among equals with the other municipalities.Footnote ⁸

Out of this arrangement grew the everyday challenge of governing mobility: the movement of people, goods, and services throughout the district. Residents faced the threat of multiple taxation on their vehicles, arbitrary transit enforcement, and confusion in an unclear policy landscape that became increasingly onerous to navigate. Although the ayuntamiento of Mexico City sought to set policy and guide its implementation, no legal framework compelled the other municipalities in the district to obey it.Footnote ⁹ They retained the power to set rules within their own jurisdictions, irrespective of the impact on neighboring populations. Attempts to address this difficulty faced entrenched opposition from municipal officials, who sparred with the ayuntamiento and district governor over control of political authority in the capital.Footnote ¹⁰ The federal government, especially under Díaz, gradually undermined local power through the creation of new political institutions that stood in parallel to the municipalities, commandeering decision-making power over certain matters, including transit policy, and concentrating it within the office of the district governor.Footnote ¹¹ This struggle reflected—albeit writ small, given the federal district's spatial footprint at the time—the long history of conflict over political centralization in Mexico, a conflict that had profound consequences for regional mobility, the development of new transit policies, and the building of transportation infrastructure.

Taxing Local Mobility

In 1867, four months after President Benito Juárez's triumphant return to Mexico City, following the defeat and dissolution of the French-backed Second Mexican Empire, the restored republican government passed new taxes on local vehicles. The taxes were part of a series of levies national lawmakers approved over subsequent decades to increase revenue, modernize collection, and reform the tax structure Mexico had inherited from the colonial period.Footnote ¹² Decreed on November 28, the municipal fund endowment law for Mexico City was a wide-ranging document that covered water use, market operations, licenses, alcohol and tobacco sales, pawn shops, and public festivals, among other issues, and also detailed a list of tariffs to be charged for goods entering the capital. Concerning urban transportation, the law dedicated seven articles to privately owned and rented carriages; it set a five-peso monthly tax on the former, to be paid out in four installments over the course of the year and making no distinctions as to size or carrying capacity. The law also exempted governmental and diplomatic vehicles from the tax.Footnote ¹³

An important feature of the law was its Article 73, which defined Mexico City's relationship to neighboring municipalities in the federal district, specifically Tacubaya, located four miles southwest. The law stated that the two entities would coordinate with one another on collecting the transit tax, under the supervision of the national government, but it also reserved the right to rescind the agreement if Mexico City's authorities so chose.Footnote ¹⁴ Local officials across the district negotiated on spending and enforcement issues to minimize differences in policies and enforcement. It was common for people who lived in one municipio to travel to others for work within the district. The tax and regulatory understandings among the municipal governments were meant to reduce double taxation and confusion among licensing procedures for vehicles. For example, by 1870, Tacubaya and Mexico City authorities promised that the taxes collected from carriage owners would be directed to repair roads worn down by the vehicles’ heavy wheels in both municipalities. However, questions about this arrangement surfaced later, in 1873, when Tacubaya's government wrote Mexico City officials to ask whether mule-drawn carts should fall under the taxation rubric that affected carriages. The response they received said that carts were not taxed locally and that there was no standing in the law for Tacubaya to coerce payment.Footnote ¹⁵

It was only a matter of time before conflict emerged. Tacubaya's authorities were increasingly frustrated with the ayuntamiento of Mexico City, viewing it as lax in tax enforcement. Although it is unclear from the evidence why Tacubaya became so diligent in prosecuting cases, its government soon became a standout in its willingness to pursue aggressive campaigns against vehicle owners to ensure they paid the transit levies. Officials focused on carriages, which the law clearly singled out for the tax. In 1880, Tacubaya's Comisión de Hacienda (finance commission) composed a list of all privately owned carriages registered in the municipio, noting that only 13 of 31 individuals had paid the registration tax. It sent out warnings to the rest, threatening legal repercussions for failure to comply.Footnote ¹⁶

The archival evidence indicates a diverse economic background for cart and carriage owners, as well as drivers. Hand carts appeared to be entirely owner operated, whereas drivers of two- and four-wheeled carts drawn by animals may have owned their vehicles but were also likely to have worked for someone else for a wage. Not surprising, some owners possessed multiple carts and carriages, hiring workers or renting them out for a fee. Similarly, carriage owners typically maintained at least one for personal use, and often hired a driver, while other people in the registry ran businesses that rented carriages for travelers or for transporting goods within the district.Footnote ¹⁷

In June 1885, Tacubaya's officials won a significant victory. Reforms to the municipal fund endowment law added mule-drawn carts, ordering owners to pay between three and five pesos a month in taxes, based on the vehicle's size and characteristics. By then, mule-drawn cart owners had also come under scrutiny, with requirements to show proof of registry and ownership. Although hand carts were exempted from the levy, all vehicle owners still had to register with local authorities or face penalties for failure to comply. Moreover, the law stipulated that the taxes be paid directly to the municipio in which a cart was registered, with no guidelines for cost-sharing if carts transited more than one jurisdiction. Although the reforms expanded the tax base and won support from municipal leaders, they frustrated district residents, especially working-class cart pushers and carriage drivers, but also middle-class carriage owners, who now faced even more onerous levies on local mobility.Footnote ¹⁸

The new requirements, and their zealous enforcement in some municipalities, motivated residents to attempt to circumvent them. A common practice was to claim one's vehicle plaque had been lost and request a replacement. Once the new document was issued, the “misplaced” plaque was sold to someone else who used it illegally in the local jurisdiction. In 1888, Tacubaya authorities arrested a man named José Bonilla who they accused of participating in these sales. He claimed ignorance of the matter, but the government rejected his defense, and turned him over to law enforcement for prosecution.Footnote ¹⁹ Another problem the authorities had to combat was failure to comply with the order to obtain a local operator's license. Not surprisingly, some cart and carriage drivers flouted the law and went about their daily lives. The municipal president of Tacubaya complained of this problem and ordered government workers to stop people on a regular basis and request paperwork. In doing so, they encountered what seemed to be widespread public confusion about how to pay the tax. Some drivers who lived outside of Tacubaya paid the transit tax in their home municipality. In one case, a mule-drawn cart owner, Trinidad Ávila, produced documentation that showed he had paid the license fee in Coyoacán, where he lived. Over the course of the month, he admitted to having spent a total of four days in Tacubaya with his cart for work. The authorities explained that he also had to pay the transit tax to cover those days he spent in their municipality, or face penalties for noncompliance.Footnote ²⁰

These rival jurisdictions proved a challenge for residents to navigate on a day-to-day basis.Footnote ²¹ Beginning in 1888, the national government published a series of reforms to address the problem of regional mobility across the federal district's towns and villages. President Porfirio Díaz directed the district governor, José Ceballos, to order all local municipalities to coordinate on the collection of transit license fees and distribute funds in an equitable manner. Once paid, the owner or driver received a license that had to be carried at all times when using the vehicle; failure to do so resulted in a fine of 10 pesos. To carry out this work, Ceballos created a new institution: the Comisión de Coches y Carros (commission for coaches and carts), which worked with the district's Comisión de Hacienda and the Administrador de Rentas Municipales (administrator for municipal rents) to collect and distribute the transit taxes. The reforms also heightened enforcement, finally giving transit authorities the power to seize vehicles from owners for noncompliance. Moreover, the reforms required officials in neighboring municipalities in the State of Mexico to submit lists of vehicle registrations; residents from those communities were expected to pay a transit tax in the municipality where they delivered goods within the district.Footnote ²²

Throughout 1889, President Díaz and Governor Ceballos introduced more transit reforms. They raised taxes on two- and four-wheeled vehicles and outlawed any outside vehicles that lacked wheel coverings from entering the district's municipalities, because of the damage they caused to the local wood-block streets. Finally, they set new commercial rules. The weight of merchandise that vehicles transported had to correspond to the number of animals used for conveyance; for instance, there was a maximum weight of 80 arrobas (approximately 920 kg) for vehicles drawn by one animal and a maximum of 160 arrobas for two. In addition, the rules restricted larger carts to carrying no more than four barrels of pulque. Failure to abide by any of the guidelines resulted in a 10-peso fine.Footnote ²³

These reforms followed on Porfirian officials’ objective to eliminate colonial-era taxes that burdened internal trade. Known as alcabalas, a kind of sales tax, these levies affected every type of good transported into the federal district.Footnote ²⁴ As a result, tax collectors had to review the cargos transported to ensure owners paid the correct amounts for their specific goods, based on the list of alcabalas. By reforming this process and shifting the focus from specific goods to weight and vehicle type, collection of levies could be simplified. Officials simply needed to review transit paperwork corresponding to a vehicle's size, its number of wheels, and the satchels carried to ensure the correct tax was paid, instead of having to review the cargo in detail to confirm fiscal compliance. Exceptions remained for certain goods, such as pulque, but much of the district's trade would benefit from the reforms to the tax regime.

Although Ceballos framed these rules as necessary to protect urban infrastructure, class and cultural concerns emerged. Whereas transit laws in the 1860s regulated carriages, by the 1880s the authorities had come to focus on animal-drawn carts used by indigenous workers and farmers. Eliminating certain types of vehicles, and restricting the loads that others could carry, had visual and logistical consequences, notwithstanding the overarching tax justifications. To ensure the appearance of orderliness and reduce maintenance costs, officials threatened to fine overburdened carts that damaged streets. This drive reflected the president's desire that the district be viewed as a space of modernity and “progress,” mediated through government policy-makers and law enforcement, rather than a “chaotic” place riven by local rivalries and drivers who flouted the rules.Footnote ²⁵

Ordinary people pushed back in expected ways against these reformist goals. One of the most common was to claim a carriage met the administration's minimum weight category, allowing it to be registered at a much lower tax rate. In 1889, the municipal treasurer of Tacubaya complained that many residents tried to classify their carts as “very light,” which would cost them half as much in fees. The district Comisión de Coches y Carros qualified that category as any two-wheeled cart that a single animal could pull a reasonable distance carrying a load of goods such as matches, cigarettes, or coffee, with a carrying capacity no greater than 20 arrobas (apx. 230 kg). In Tacubaya, in defiance of these rules (or unaware of them), people registered four-wheeled, mule-drawn carts as “very light.” The government retaliated with the threat of more fines.Footnote ²⁶

Municipal finance commissions exercised considerable power and discretion in matters related to taxing and regulation of vehicles. In Tacubaya, despite its typical hard-line stance toward tax collection, the committee occasionally showed lenience to petitioners who offered services deemed popular or necessary to the daily life of the community. For instance, in January 1891, the committee waived fees to replace lost license plates for two cart drivers, one who transported pulque to Tacubaya from a nearby hacienda, and another who carried ground corn from the local mill. In another case, the committee agreed to waive the 5-peso fine for one owner, Miguel Sánchez, whose license plate went missing after a carriage accident that took his driver's life.Footnote ²⁷

The generosity that one committee showed did not carry over to other municipalities. In the Sánchez case, officials in Coyoacán disagreed with the decision. Sánchez had initially made the request for leniency in that municipality but was rejected. To the authorities in Coyoacán, Sánchez argued that he was not responsible for the lost plate on the basis that the accident involved one of his drivers and he was not present at the time. The municipal president ruled that Sánchez had had sufficient time to resolve the matter but had neglected to do so. Not only did he lose his petition to avoid paying the fine and replacement fee, but Tacubaya's officials were later informed of the matter and decided to side with their counterparts in Coyoacán, agreeing not to intercede further to resolve the matter in Sánchez's favor.Footnote ²⁸

A tense but calculated relationship existed among residents, district officials, and municipal governments. Díaz and his reformers remained preoccupied with how people moved through the federal district and the ways in which they carried themselves and their goods. For instance, by the 1890s, the Mexican president ordered new limits on the amount of pulque that could be transported to the capital. He wanted to ensure the federal district remained a model of progress that reflected modern values to the rest of the nation, as well as foreign investors. By limiting the transit of pulque into the district, the federal government also hoped to limit its consumption. This drive coincided with the trend towards greater centralization of political authority occurring across Mexico during the final years of the nineteenth century.

Reform Amid Technological Change

Rationalizing mobility in the federal district became a primary fixation of the national government in the latter years of the Porfiriato. In this, it joined middle-class and elite reformers in the Americas and Europe who made concerted efforts to push new policies that remade transit in major cities. Bicycle clubs in the United States and Great Britain became some of the earliest campaigners for structural reform, which opened the way for spatial reconfigurations of city streets at the turn of the twentieth century.Footnote ²⁹ In Mexico City, pro-cycling groups shared many similarities with their foreign counterparts and were likely aware of the activities being carried out in places like New York, Chicago, Boston, London, and Paris. For years, affluent residents (mostly male) imported two- and three-wheeled contraptions from France, Great Britain, and the United States for leisure and racing in the Condesa neighborhood's hippodrome, as well as at Peralvillo, just north of central Mexico City.Footnote ³⁰

Despite early popular ridicule and official restrictions, bicycle clubs gained President Díaz's backing, which emboldened their enthusiasm for policy changes. In the following years, they launched concerted efforts to remake the district's streets and other public spaces. The clubs approached policy initiatives in two ways. First, they called for new transit rules and enforcement, with the goal of building a hierarchy of mobility in the city's transportation infrastructure under the guise of public safety. Cyclists were to be a protected class of mobility, against the jeers of bystanders and the threat of collision with carts and carriages. District governor Pedro Rincón Gallardo supported these efforts, passing laws that protected right-of-way for cyclists, opening streets (but not sidewalks) for bicycles, and ordering police to protect riders from physical harm or verbal abuse. Second, the clubs advocated for the creation of new public spaces dedicated to riders. The best-known example was their support for the district's purchase of the Chapultepec Forest to create a massive public park for cyclists and pedestrians to use.Footnote ³¹

The proposal fit well with the national government's existing priorities. Porfirian officials used large public works and infrastructure projects to acquire and commercially develop land, raising property values. In the 1870s and 1880s, Salvador Malo, an urban planner who worked for the government, created ambitious models for the municipality of Mexico City's street grid, based on designs by Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Ildefonso Cerdá for Paris and Barcelona, respectively. Malo called for the restoration and expansion of the Paseo de Degollado, which extended from Chapultepec Castle to the heart of the municipality. Originally commissioned in the 1860s during the Second French Intervention, it was named Paseo de la Emperatriz by Maximilian of Habsburg, who was inspired to build a great avenue that rivaled Vienna's Ringstrasse and Paris's Champs-Élysées. Díaz approved Malo's proposal and work began on what became the Paseo de la Reforma. This boulevard came to reflect the Porfiriato's interpretation of Mexican history as well. Builders erected monuments to indigenous and Spanish leaders, portraying them as heroes and ancestors to the modern, sovereign nation Díaz was forging in Mexico. Sidewalks gave ample space for pedestrians, while the avenue came into vogue among wealthy Mexico City residents, who built grand new homes along it.Footnote ³²

In November 1894, the district governor, with support from the president, asserted his political authority through the ayuntamiento of Mexico City, with the creation of several additional commissions to oversee and enforce transit policy.Footnote ³³ The law of January 1895 ordered all owners to register their vehicles with the district Comisión de Coches y Carros, thereby creating a ledger for each municipality that detailed the names and addresses of owners, the number of vehicles they possessed, the size of each vehicle, where the vehicles were stored, the corresponding license plate numbers, and how much the owner owed in taxes. Officials shared this information with the district Comisión de Hacienda and the Administración de Rentas Municipales (administration for municipal rents), which created a model to distribute tax monies to local authorities.Footnote ³⁴

This new organizational structure marked a major departure from the negotiated arrangements that had existed between municipalities in decades past. The governor increasingly ruled via edicts promulgated through the ayuntamiento of Mexico City. It was a change that paralleled the general historical arc of the late nineteenth century, as Díaz concentrated more power in fewer hands. Although municipal governments still played a role, it was a reduced one, as the governor and the committees that served him became the final arbiters of transit policy. In February 1897, the governor and city council ordered that all vehicles transiting any public avenues in the district at night have lanterns attached to improve visibility. The police commission stipulated that anyone who failed to follow this order be fined between one and 10 pesos and have their vehicle confiscated for police review. All of the fines collected were expected to be turned over to the Administración de Rentas Municipales.Footnote ³⁵

As the government passed laws that developed land for economic purposes, centralized decision-making authority in the ayuntamiento of Mexico City, and tried to enforce its new rules, the district's population continued to grow. In 1895, census officials counted 476,413 inhabitants in the federal district; some 15 years later, on the eve of the Mexican Revolution, the population had increased to 720,753.Footnote ³⁶ This change presented acute challenges for district officials. The government needed to ensure the capital had the right kind of transportation infrastructure to cope with the demands of a growing population.

Technological solutions had long been a part of the district's history. For instance, in July 1857, President Ignacio Comonfort inaugurated the first rail transport line in the federal district, which extended from the Zócalo, the historic center of Mexico City, to Villa Guadalupe, roughly eight kilometers northeast, near the famed religious shrine.Footnote ³⁷ Although faster than mule-drawn carts and carriages, train travel remained too expensive for poor and working-class residents. Locomotives had other limits, too. While the steam engines were useful for regional travel, once in town, they were maladapted to uneven levels on streets and (due to their heavy weight) sunk into the soft soil of the municipio. As a result, in 1877, the government ordered that only mule-drawn trolley cars could be used in urban areas. That arrangement remained the norm until the electrification of the entire tram network in 1900.Footnote ³⁸

Following national trends, Díaz and his supporters used urban infrastructure building, especially the district railroad and trolley networks, as an opportunity for public spectacles to celebrate modernity. Government-friendly newspapers eagerly described the ceremonies staged to inaugurate new stations and transport lines.Footnote ³⁹ In the federal district, lavish events marked the expansion of the transportation network. For instance, in 1897, the District Railroad Company, the influential and powerful enterprise that operated the capital's rail and its infrastructure, opened new service from downtown Mexico City to Tacubaya and Santa Fe. The festivities included the launching of five specially appointed rail cars to carry Díaz and other notables, including Ignacio Mariscal and José Yves Limantour, from the Zócalo to Santa Fe, where a sumptuous meal was offered, along with toasts and speeches honoring the moment. The president's car was a special gift from the railroad company, painted in black and gold with copper and iron details accenting the wooden body. Reporters described the interior as particularly luxurious, making note of the spotless marble fixtures and plush furniture.Footnote ⁴⁰

Against the lavish backdrop of ceremonies commemorating new infrastructure, calls to address defective service highlighted outstanding social and economic imbalances despite the centralization of the transit authority. In August 1897, the district superintendent of railroads came under criticism for failing to ensure that service operated in a timely manner. The pro-government newspaper El Imparcial disparaged the repeated delays that trolley commuters experienced when departing from the neighborhood of Santa Maria la Ribera, about four kilometers from the Zócalo. The paper also complained about irregular service to the neighborhood of Peralvillo due to efforts to redirect traffic flows, which left many local residents waiting upward of 20 minutes for a trolley to arrive. It singled out two directors in charge of traffic and mobility for the trolleys, calling on “Messrs. Bongstreet [sic] and Rodríguez” to pay attention to “the public's just complaints” and improve service.Footnote ⁴¹

Newspaper coverage reflected the common form of political critique in Porfirian Mexico. The press used transportation services as a way of criticizing the effectiveness of government policy, without focusing on the president for scrutiny. They lamented poor operations, frequent accidents, and aloof officials as signs of the government's failure.Footnote ⁴² In the case of El Imparcial's reporting, it is instructive that Díaz was featured at the center of the narratives when the subject was a triumphant new achievement for the tram service. In articles describing operational failures, however, Díaz was absent, with focus and scorn reserved, instead, for mid-level district and company officials.Footnote ⁴³

How the public utilized district mobility infrastructure remained a central concern for local elites, who were influenced by European and US examples and argued that residents’ “bad” habits reflected poorly on a community's civility. El Imparcial listed a series of nuisances, chief among them the “custom” in Mexico City for people to stand and chat with friends, blocking the sidewalk for others. The newspaper noted that “in the grandest European cities any citizen who stopped like that would find themselves trampled underfoot by the great mass of humanity in transit.” It also observed that in “active societies” like the United States, people make time for only a quick greeting on the street and “do not stop to recount long stories or contemplate the white spiral of a cigarette”; in Paris the police prohibited loitering. El Imparcial used these examples to make the point that in Mexico “we go out to pass time talking, argue with one another, or laud a woman's beauty so much so that other people who need to get work done step out into the street to get around and risk being run over by a vehicle.”Footnote ⁴⁴

The newspaper described how the District Railroad Company's conductors faced daily problems of overcrowding, as well as having to deal with troublesome men “who think paying the cost of a ride gives them the right to bother women” on board. It called on the ayuntamiento of Mexico City to put new restrictions on how people used the urban trains and also demanded that the police make enforcement a priority.Footnote ⁴⁵ The reason for these concerns had to do with the troubling number of accidents pedestrians and passengers suffered. People darted in front of the trams (and other vehicles) trying to cross the street, while some persons recklessly boarded or disembarked.Footnote ⁴⁶ The government promised to address these transit problems and passed new laws to regulate vehicle traffic in the district.Footnote ⁴⁷ However, residents continued to ignore rules and resist enforcement, flouting official efforts to control movement through the construction of physical barriers and other protections on trams.Footnote ⁴⁸ In subsequent years, civic organizations in the district (as they did elsewhere, in cities like Boston) worked with policy makers to brand habits such as jaywalking as “bad,” in favor of an etiquette that prioritized vehicle traffic over pedestrian movement and other activities. By the early twentieth century, governments and civic groups had divided the street into lanes of acceptable mobility.Footnote ⁴⁹

As the district's authorities policed how citizens used the capital's transportation infrastructure, the national government reinforced Díaz's desire to showcase technological progress. The president's elite positivist advisors, the group known as los científicos, looked to Europe for developmental models when designing Mexico City's network of electrified trams. By 1897, Paris had implemented the first stage of electric-powered trains to serve its central districts. The system utilized train cars that moved 12 kilometers an hour in the French capital's urban core and 16 kilometers per hour on the periphery. The District Railroad Company, drawing on a robust budget and engineering expertise, plus strong support from the government and foreign investors, studied the work being carried out in France and planned to build a similar network in Mexico.Footnote ⁵⁰

The decision to electrify the trams brought considerable risk, however. Exposed cables presented a life-threatening hazard to pedestrians if touched. In January 1899, El Imparcial drew on a useful comparison to highlight the problem. It noted that whereas factories employed trained individuals to alert co-workers about the danger of certain equipment on the shop floor, the capital's electrified tramlines would be out in the open, “a part of the public thoroughfare, in squares and streets, avenues and highways, where the whole world passes, and where general cooperation and aid is much more necessary.” Although the electrical current needed to power the trams ranged between 500 to 550 volts, in some areas, due to traffic and high demand, the lines and power stations could exceed 5,000 volts. The newspaper went on to detail the physiological effects of electrocution and what bystanders must do to help someone while also protecting themselves from harm.Footnote ⁵¹

This concern underscored contradictions in the developmentalist project that Díaz and his government eagerly embraced. They wanted the technological infrastructure to showcase modernity in Mexico City, imitating the great Western Belle Époque capitals of the late nineteenth century with their broad avenues, sanitation systems, and electrified light and transportation. Mexican political and commercial leaders in the district prized the symbols of scientific efficiency and speed as emblematic of a well-functioning society. The electrified tram fit these expectations but did not come without serious risks. Even public supporters of the president's agenda, like El Imparcial, had to acknowledge the dangers of importing new technologies, exposing ordinary residents to unfamiliar infrastructures, and the threat of injury, even death, that pertained.Footnote ⁵² In deciding to build an electrified tram network, Mexican leaders implicitly accepted those costs, which were outweighed by their desire that the capital serve as a national monument to technological progress to impress visitors. By trying to make Mexico City a peer of Paris or London, the government sought to justify its program for modernizing the country despite what negative impacts might befall poor or working-class Mexicans in the process.Footnote ⁵³

Against this effort, the opposition press depicted electrified trolleys as yet another capricious decision of an aloof governing elite. In May 1900, El Hijo del Ahuizote, a newspaper popular with middle-class readers in the district, published a satirical image of a Mexico City trolley colliding with pedestrians. The locomotive, connected to an electrified line running above the street, was shown to have arms and hoofs sprouting from beneath the chassis, pushing shocked passersby out of the way. The trolley driver's expression was a placid mask, unaware of (or indifferent to) the chaos his transport caused; it depicted how the government appeared to prize the march of progress regardless of the cost to its people. The caption read: “Modifications introduced in electric traction, with the objective that victim's cadavers, at least, can be identified.” Next to that scene, the cartoonist drew a confused-looking Porfirio Díaz sitting on the president's gilded-eagle throne with a copy of the newspaper in hand.Footnote ⁵⁴

In another series of cartoons, El Hijo del Ahuizote artists lampooned the transit fines that moralizing police inspectors doled out. One frame depicted an official in a black suit and bowler hat stopping a peasant farmer's cart along Paseo de la Reforma, declaring, “This animal doesn't smell good; 200-peso fine and it's taken out of service.” Lower on the page, an electric trolley is shown as a bloody elephant with large, sharp tusks and three pedestrians crushed underneath. Finally, at the bottom of the page, the cartoonist satirized outstanding class tensions, drawing a police officer smashing a cart to pieces, while saying, absurdly, “You're not being careful; I'm doing this so that you don't trample the automobiles that are coming.”Footnote ⁵⁵ The satire of transit policy continued in numerous other editorials. In one, an author described the three service lines electric trolleys offered: “direct to heaven, purgatory, [or] direct to hell” and listed certain warnings: heaven-bound service lacked recreational cars; purgatory admitted only “weathervane politicians, lukewarm liberals, conciliators and two-faced journalists”; and hell's trains left the station at all hours with free fares and violin music.Footnote ⁵⁶

Despite public concerns and biting satire from the opposition, district officials pressed ahead with further consolidation of political authority following the inauguration of the electrified tram network. The technical challenges of implementing new infrastructures, and ensuring they would be used responsibly, bolstered the arguments in favor of centralization. In 1903, Díaz's government reduced the autonomy of the municipalities by making them consultative committees and bolstered the district governor's power even more.Footnote ⁵⁷ This change formally placed the ayuntamiento of Mexico City at the center of the regulatory framework that controlled vehicle traffic in the district, defining the authority of the Comisión de Coches y Carros to oversee these activities, and designated district police inspectors as the principal enforcers of transit regulations across the region, regardless of municipality.Footnote ⁵⁸ These changes likely pleased foreign investors, including US financier and transportation developer Frederick Stark Pearson, who sought stability and reliable partners in the government for the millions of pesos in private financing he helped bring to build the electric trams during this time.Footnote ⁵⁹

The reorganization of district governance came during a time of significant reforms to Mexican state institutions in the 1890s and early 1900s. The national government sought to consolidate its own bureaucratic structures and also to professionalize the civil service. For instance, Jose Yves Limantour, head of the federal Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit), reduced the size of the organization, restructured employee salaries, and implemented new hiring methods in an effort to improve effectiveness. The objective was to reduce the size and cost of the ministry to make tax collection more affordable and thus increase revenues for the government.Footnote ⁶⁰ This process of reduction and consolidation was at work in the district as well, as police, engineers, maintenance, and other services came under the authority of the ayuntamiento of Mexico City, with the governor at the head of the regional bureaucracy.

Adding to these reforms, national and district officials published guidelines for law enforcement in respect to residents’ behavior in using public spaces and transportation infrastructure.Footnote ⁶¹ Police inspectors levied fines and threatened to seize vehicles from unruly individuals. In 1905, for the first time, the district government published a transit rule book, opening a new kind of front in the conflict between officials and residents over the use of public spaces dedicated to transportation. The guidelines delineated acceptable conduct and listed punishments for noncompliance. Future editions of the district's transit manual targeted public intoxication, shouting from trams, and talking on sidewalks. Structures of control were built into the very policies and infrastructures purported to facilitate mobility.Footnote ⁶²

Local consolidation of power in the federal district followed national trends as President Díaz sought to eliminate any appearance of rancorous democratic experimentation, preferring orderly and authoritarian economic development open to foreign investment.Footnote ⁶³ By eliminating municipal autonomy, he reduced the number of voices that could intervene in or contest how the district was managed. Yet, the hoped-for improvements did not fully materialize; in particular, centralization failed to reduce outstanding problems with quality of service in public transportation. Residents continued to complain about long waits at rail and tram stations, lax police protection, and dangerous accidents due to negligent operators.Footnote ⁶⁴

In February 1905, the district narrowly averted a general strike of its electrified tram service. The District Railroad Company had infuriated drivers and engineers over the use of a private secret police service to monitor employee activities. In response, workers complained about the lack of support they received from management and promised retribution for this violation of trust. The following day, as many as 40 tram workers blocked access to the Indianilla station, leading to a tense standoff with managers and other employees. The police ultimately intervened to break up the nascent strike.Footnote ⁶⁵ This conflict underscored outstanding problems between transportation workers, the district tram company, and the government, which presaged the strikes and suspensions of service that bedeviled the capital in subsequent years.Footnote ⁶⁶

Also, in 1905, El Imparcial reported claims from an unnamed source about mismanagement in the district's Dirección de Obras Públicas. Although the newspaper labeled the claims as false, it nevertheless provided a detailed accounting of the alleged activities. It described how the defunct Dirección de Calzadas (directorate of roads) had been a more effective entity for maintenance when it coordinated with the local municipalities. When this work moved to the new Dirección de Obras Públicas in the district government, some residents claimed that upkeep declined as engineers were overextended and neglected their duties. El Imparcial framed this narrative as an unjustified attack on the government, but the fact that the newspaper responded to reports published by other print outlets indicates the level of concern around the issue. Pro-government entities reacted to competing narratives, which likely underscored a sense of insecurity over public opinion on the policy of centralization.Footnote ⁶⁷

Although Díaz's government continued to support the ayuntamiento of Mexico City's control over mobility policy in the district, it struggled against labor challenges, service complaints, allegations of mismanagement, and eroding public confidence. The goal of marginalizing the municipalities was short-lived. Ultimately, political turmoil growing across the nation led to the national government's demise. Beginning in 1910, the armed uprisings that erupted across northern and central Mexico pushed Díaz out of power and into exile. Following Francisco Madero's ascent to the presidency, he empowered a new generation of urban policy makers who went to work developing alternative plans for local transportation infrastructure and transit policy. In 1912, President Madero agreed to restore the political authority of municipalities, a symbolic and administrative break with the past, acknowledging the failures of the Porfirian government to address mobility concerns through centralization in the federal district.Footnote ⁶⁸