Originally Posted by
Detroitnerd
Not the opening remark about Couzens, but about the growing post-war personal automobile market being barely tapped and the limits on demand being seen to be personal income growth and good roads, not urban mass transportation.
See, since GM began looking into eliminating streetcars as early as 1922, you cannot categorically say that GM didn't see limits to demand in urban mass transportation. As for them almost going out of business, who cares, right? We're discussing intent, not ability here.
And as for that "great streetcar conspiracy" bit, there are always going to be certain people who believe that it's perfectly OK for Firestone, Standard and GM to buy streetcar systems through their subsidiary and then demand they use their products. Of course, when your products are motor coaches [[GM), tires [[Firestone) and oil and gas [[Standard), I'm not quite sure how you do this without forcing a streetcar system to convert to buses. Maybe, in an alternate dimension, this is possible, but I'm just not seeing it here on planet Earth. Yes, the feds didn't stick them with the conspiracy charge, and that has allowed a lot of folks to say they didn't do it.
I'll say it again, in accepting the judgment, GM said, "We didn't do it. And we won't do it again."