Welcome back! As a primer for two of my classes (transit planning and transportation policy) this quarter we are watching and discussing a PBS documentary “Taken for a Ride” by Jim Klein. The film documents how GM and other automotive industries conspired to kill established streetcar providers. I’m sure there are some half truths in this movie but it is a fact that GM was prosecuted for illegal activities that killed American streetcars.
I was able to find the first 20 minutes of this film on YouTube. If anyone else finds the complete film please share. If not maybe this would be something to watch at an STB meetup?
Dear God make it stop.
Ok, I’m biased. After 40 years of reading about, riding, and, so help me God, modeling streetcars, I have just run out of patience with young people of any age who think we had perfectly good streetcar lines until (dum-ta-dum-dum) GM and Firestone killed them dead.
The fate of many an American urban transit system is probably found in a marginal comment in a book on Detroit’s street railways that I’m reading right now- “In retrospect it probably would have been better to rebuild the lines [in the 30s] on private ROW in the form of today’s [early 80s] light rail”.
Having considered the matter at some length, I’m inclined to agree. The streetcar fought the buses and automobiles for possession of the city streets, and lost. Any serious student of transit policy will, of course, be looking hard at the franchise requirements, regulatory environment, shifting demographics, and technological change.
Some readers at this point will triumphantly declare that this proves streetcars are a bad choice today, because they will be caught in congestion. This simply ignores changing times. In the 30s gas got cheaper and cars got better in a way that will never be seen again. There are other factors and in my opinion they all add up to streetcars being something we should add to our cities. YMMV.
Having read about the GM conspiracy years ago (and read about it and read about it and read about it) I can only say, enough already! It was a symptom, not a cause.
I’m sorry that you already have read about this and disagree but I was sharing so that those people that have not watched or read about it could learn. I for one had not known much about this topic and I’m sure there is much more.
I would like to point out that I did say that I’m sure there are half truths as there always are. It is impossible for a one hour documentary to summarize transportation policy over 20 or so years.
Neither myself, other students nor our professors take this film as indisputable in any way, rather we are using it as a jumping off point to discussion how government policy can radically affect transportation and more broadly how transit has played a role in America.
Well, I can see how this could be a learning tool, as in, watch the film, discuss impressions, learn the content, and then discuss the thing again and see if people still think that’s a good angle from which to approach the subject.
‘Content’ is what we used to call the facts of the matter, and I’m so old I remember when you just learned the content to start with, but of course that was subjects like chemistry or anatomy which are inherently easier (apparently) to teach in that way.
Do report to us just how the class perceives the film and how the professors use this as a learning tool.