Street Cars in Detroit.

[Mikeg]

A link to an info with Detroit as a reference. Also last why would GM go through the effort of eliminating 900+ systems and leave streetcars in its own backyard?

http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm

I read through your linked article and by golly, it does mention "Detroit" and "bribes" in the same sentence. The author alleges that is it not impossible that GM could have offered "bribes or other inducements" in Detroit and four other places. However, he only offers evidence of "other inducements" that happened in two of the other cities:

The railways of Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, as well as those of Canada were publicly operated and unavailable for purchase; but this did not preclude GM, which was equally active in Canada, from using bribes and other inducements to persuade their officials to motorize.
Indeed, in San Francisco and Seattle, it arranged for one of its former regional bus managers, the ex-president of its United Cities subsidiary, to become manager and transit czar.

I seem to recall that just a few posts ago you were making a different allegation about bribes:

.... GM was given money by the city.....

Which is it? Are you making this stuff up or will you try to clear it all up for us once you finally "have access to the infomation"?

[p69rrh51]

I read through your linked article and by golly, it does mention "Detroit" and "bribes" in the same sentence. The author alleges that is it not impossible that GM could have offered "bribes or other inducements" in Detroit and four other places. However, he only offers evidence of "other inducements" that happened in two of the other cities:
I seem to recall that just a few posts ago you were making a different allegation about bribes:



Which is it? Are you making this stuff up or will you try to clear it all up for us once you finally "have access to the infomation"?

So an article that has to be fact checked does not measure up? I guess nobody in Detroit has ever taken a bribe? Or that the engineers were already under GM control which you failed to mention. But then I was suprised that this started much earlier than I had thought. Last you did not answer my question why would GM be so aggressive with the rest of North America and not here were their headquarters where located?

[Hermod]

A link to an info with Detroit as a reference. Also last why would GM go through the effort of eliminating 900+ systems and leave streetcars in its own backyard?

http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm

The systems bought by the consortium and converted to buses [[The Great Conspiracy) were all privately-owned lines. They were all available for sale and easily bought because they were in bad shape financially.

The Detroit streetcar system had been taken over by the city in a political strong-arm fashion from the owners [[Detroit United Railways) long before GM became much of a financial power.

[Mikeg]

So an article that has to be fact checked does not measure up? I guess nobody in Detroit has ever taken a bribe? Or that the engineers were already under GM control which you failed to mention. But then I was suprised that this started much earlier than I had thought. Last you did not answer my question why would GM be so aggressive with the rest of North America and not here were their headquarters where located?

I don't have to answer that question, you do, since you are the one making the allegations.

The subject of this thread is "Street Cars in Detroit", not "Speculation on how GM could have conspired to end the Street Cars in Detroit". Instead of hijacking this one, why don't you start your own street car conspiracy thread?

[p69rrh51]

I don't have to answer that question, you do, since you are the one making the allegations.

The subject of this thread is "Street Cars in Detroit", not "Speculation on how GM could have conspired to end the Street Cars in Detroit". Instead of hijacking this one, why don't you start your own street car conspiracy thread?

I already knew you would not have an answer! According to B. Rhodes who at the time I asked him was head of dealer relations for Cadillac [[I willl not give his first name out but he was in the position in the late 90's be my guest to look him up) he worked with/for a one of the members of that committee. Unfortunately that is all he would say, but as we have learned by 1950 the fix was already in, so its a moot point. I have to say its refreshing usually big bad companys get treated like the ugly step sister on here, its good to see someone defending them. If you do not like my answer I could care less as we now know that it was the wrong decision in the long run.