Eugene Coyle wrote: > I'll tout once again the film "Taken for a Ride" about the GM and > Firestone conspiracy to rid the world of public transit.
I wouldn't call this a "conspiracy," since (at least in Los Angeles), a lot of people consciously went along with it (especially those with the most political power, i.e., the rich and middle classes, businesspeople, the LA TIMES). It's more like GM and its allies were the vanguard of a movement. Remember that there was little or no opposition, because for there to be an opposition something like a labor movement or a social-democratic movement was needed (and didn't exit). One reason why there was no major opposition was partly because the Red Car (Pacific Electric) trolley system had been allowed to decay and was interfering with car traffic. (It went both ways: the cars slowed the Red Car movement, too, making the Red Cars less attractive.) Note that the Red Cars were never especially profitable, because there was so much overhead. The effort by GM and its allies to get rid of the Red Cars fell on a fertile political field. Note that the choice was not (1) keep the Red Cars or (2) get rid of them. Instead, it was (1) invest a lot of money in upgrading the Red Cars (perhaps putting them in the middle of the new freeways, which were already being planned); or (2) replace them. In fact, given the system's losses, the Pacific Electric would likely have to have been taken over by the city and county of Los Angeles. Part of the problem, of course, was that when the system was abolished in the 1940s and early 1950s, people didn't know the full implications of the ending of the train system. It took a few years to sink in. It's only in the 1960s that suddenly the problems became obvious. By the way, it's not that public transport was abolished in Los Angeles. Rather, the Red Cars were replaced by municipal buses, which were and are much less convenient (because of the dispersed nature of LA) and more pollution-intensive. the article in the Wikipedia is informative. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
