Electric car conspiracy?

That kind of confirms the conspiracy.

Start with name calling - Liberals belive this myth
Then redefine terms.
Then discount it because most of us learned about it in an animated movie "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".

The facts still are stark. GM, Texaco, Firestone conspired to destroy electric street cars. They bought systems and destroyed them at huge losses hoping to make it up by selling cars, gas, and tires to people driving instead of taking public transport. They got caught and convicted in federal court. The cities that they destroyed the public transport infratructure, had worse public transport for decades because of the conspiracy. Back when the infrastructure was destroyed it was much less expensive to build than today.

The author seems to have a anti-public transportation agenda. and is trying to distort these facts but they are easy to look up.

 

Conspiracy or not, trolley cars were on their way out. Here's an article about the ones that used to travel through my town.
Trolley Tracks Excavated on Davidson Street, Perth Amboy 9/22/14 | The Amboy Guardian

 

I again question those that say there was no conspiracy. There are thousands of pages of documents, pictures, and ofcourse the conviction in federal court that is of public record.

There absolutely was a conspiracy to make public transportation worse in many cities in order to sell more cars, tires, and gasoline. This took the form of a partnership that bought and destroyed street car systems in a money losing collusion to eliminate competition. Profits from selling cars, tires, and gasoline to those that had inadequate public transportation made up for the losses for these companies in destroying the street cars.

Now there is a second point that some want to mix up here. It would have happened even without a consiracy. And that may have been true in some of the cities. In NYC there already was a good subway system, street cars would have died a natural death there just decades later.

But the prime examples of damage are as always LA and Toronto. LA's street car system was destroyed by the conspiracy. At the time it had the most extensive system in North America. After that public transit sucked in LA until they built a subway in 1990, and took many years to grow as vast as the previous streetcar system. Toronto's street cars were left in tact, and street car revenue helped pay for the toronto subway. Toronto's streetcars provide over 100 million trips a year. Damage was definitely done to LA that took lots of money and over 50 years to recover from.
Toronto streetcar system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

General Motors streetcar conspiracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

my favorite car conspiracy arose out of the 1970's. It involved a so-called 100 mpg carburetor. The oil companies allegedly bought the patents so that it would never come to market. funny thing is some people actually still believe that's true, even though electric car equivalence are now higher than 100 mpg.

.

 

You want a conspiracy? You got a conspiracy.
The Atlantean Conspiracy: Who Killed the Water Car?

 

So we have 2 theories

GM, Texaco, and Firestone conspired to hurt mass transit by buying and underfunding systems in 20-200 cities. Let's take it at 20 with LA the most important. In these systems they added buss lines and scrapped cars and did not do proper maintenance and improvements. Before the trial was finished these companies sold their interest in the company they created to destroy street cars, so that they would not be found continuing to act. Those are the basic agreed on facts.

Theory 1 says that they were effective in some of the cities, and did damage to mass transit there. The switch to bus lines and effective mismanagement of public transit helped destroy it in at least 10 of those cities. When wwII came and gasoline and rubber shortages came up, it was a great excuse to cut back on bus routes and make them more expensive. By 1949 when the conspiracy was prosecuted the damage was already done. Here cities like toronto are held up as what LA mass transit might have looked at if the street car system had been properely managed, as it was in toronto.

Theory 2 says that street cars were going to die anyway. It didn't mater that these companies conspired to kill mass transit in LA and other cities, as street cars were going away anyway.

Even if you subscribe to theory 2, I don't understand how the politicians and corporations can be justified for hastening the demise. Everyone involved has died though. Sloan, who was likely the idea man here, has a business school named after him. GM sold a great many cars in LA, texaco a lot of gasoline, and firestone a lot of tires.

 

They took advantage of the inevitable.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Washington DC had a robust streetcar system powered in the early 50s by electricity with a mix of underground third rail in the city and overhead wires in the suburbs. It operated under a charter from Congress or charters depending on ownership. There was a gradual consolidation. The subway was for a time in the 30s part of the power company. Coal fired plants. The streetcars were hugely profitable during WWII. A mix of private financiers buying the system and paying themselves huge dividends and a meddling Congress combined to ultimately bring the system down in 1962. I recall dodging the streetcars as I learned to drive. They weren't popular with the folks who could afford cars, very popular with those who couldn't.

A desperation sale to the only person willing to buy the combined subway/bus system contained the provision requiring the discontinuance of the streetcars. The buyer seemingly had no association with GM, Firestone, the gasoline companies etc beyond being a buyer for his airline. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_Washington,_D.C.)

In the early '50s, I rode the Cabin John streetcar line paralleling the Potomac River, then going through Georgetown where it shifted power sources and went on to what is now the GW University area to go to grade school. I did this as a third and fourth grader and roamed the area of row houses with outhouses after school quite safely. We live in a different world now.

 

that's good stuff mike, thanks! two of my kids went to school there, and it sure is different.

 

point them to snopes
snopes.com: Miracle Carburetor

I live in one of the cities of conspiracies, unfortunately some of them are true.

 

There has been some what of a renaissance with electrified public transportation in the So Cal area;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)

and it does it a good amount of use
.