Yes, this same critique was posted on pen-l a few years back. Without posing as an expert on this issue, I would like to say that it is probably not a case of either/or. If GM suffered a planned loss on its transit acquisitions, that means that its actions were probably not neutral. In addition, we can't take the politics of transit levies in the 1920s (much less the prices of transit systems during the depression) as givens; after all, not all cities went this route at that time. Milwaukee retained its trolleys for several decades, and many European cities have excellent transit systems to this day. To say that GM done it would be overly simple, but there was and is very much a political economy of transportation investment, of which GM was a part. Peter Tim Stroshane wrote: > > Forwarded mail received from: PERMIT1:NAL1 > > I forwarded some of the discussion on California/transit to a > colleague here at the City of Berkeley, one of our transportation > planners, and this is his comment, with his permission. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply > Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:08:15 -0700 > From: Nathan Landau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > The GM conspiracy theory has little or no credibility in > transportation circles. It's true that a GM-owned company bought > up trolley- based transit systems and converted them to bus > operation. But if it hadn't been GM, it most likely would have > been someone else. Trolley systems were suffering from > disinvestment, and politically it was very hard to raise trolley > fares. Trolleys were increasingly being blamed for blocking > traffic. Large cities could have created off-street rapid transit > systems, but the voters of Los Angeles voted down the Rapid > Transit Plan in, I think, 1927 (even so, about a mile of subway > tunnel was built to bring trolleys into a Downtown Los Angeles > terminal). > > The changing dynamics of passenger transportation under American > capitalism did in the trolleys. That's a harder target to blame > than a nice juicy conspiracy, but that's the way it is.
