you never know, many conspiracies come to fruition, remember kwame.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal
The lack of hard information about what happened has led to intrigue, uncertainty, inaccuracy and
conspiracy theories. The story has been explored many times in print, film and other media, notably in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit [[film),
Taken for a Ride [[documentary), and
The End of Suburbia [[documentary film).
In 1946 E. Quinby alerted transportation officials across the county to what he called "A careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities, your Electric Railway System".
General Motors and others were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including
National City Lines and
Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. In the period from 1936 and 1950 they had been involved in the conversion of over 100 electric surface-traction systems that were converted to bus systems in 45 cities including
Baltimore,
Los Angeles [[mainly the "Yellow Cars"),
New York City,
Oakland and
San Diego.
In the 1970s at around the time of the
1973 oil crisis controversial new testimony was presented to a
United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of transit car systems in the USA. This alleged that there was a wider conspiracy, by
General Motors in particular, to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of
automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.
Today it is agreed that General Motors and others were indeed actively involved in an largely unpublicized program to buy up many streetcar systems and convert them to use buses, which they often supplied. There is also acknowledgment that the
Great Depression, the
Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935,
labor unrest,
market forces, rapidly increasing
traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership,
urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile played a major or possibly more significant role. One author recently summed the situation up as follows: "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction.
Remember Toyota had a huge recall after the GM bailout. hmmmm. the wizard is pulling strings