After reading this column recently, I remembered going to a party several years ago and talking to one of the hosts about corporate greed/conspiracy type things. When GM came up, he proceeded to lead me over to a tv where he popped in a tape that more or less blew me away. It was a documentary with narration throughout, and one section of black and white film allegedly showed LA streetcars being set on fire by GM henchmen, burned so that they couldn’t even be resold to European markets. I didn’t research the subject any further at the time. The guy told me it was supposed to be illegal to even own the tape, which sounded like an exaggeration, but based on what the Straight Dope column I just read says, it would make sense that GM would try real hard to make sure the tape didn’t get distributed. Has anyone else heard of or seen this documentary?
Whoops. All I had to do was perform a Google search with the words general, motors, streetcar, documentary. It returned page after page of references to the documentary, called “Taken for a Ride”. None of the synopses I read question its veracity. So much for party guy saying it was illegal to own. But still, if the documentary is to be beleived, it seems clear that GM played a large and intentional part in ridding L.A. of streetcars.
I’d have to see the documentary again; I don’t remember the date. But I’d venture that Cecil hasn’t seen the documentary. Nothing in the column indicates he did. I can’t tell when the column was written, but I think the documentary was released in '96. Read some reviews about the documentary such as these: http://www.newday.com/reviews/TakenforaRideREV.html
I am admittedly biased. I am a left-wing crazy who can’t help but think Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn are on to something. I think corporations have manipulated the public time and time again for their own interests. Again, the point I’m really trying to get at is that I doubt Cecil has seen this documentary, and would fully anticipate at least a sprinkle of doubt in his conclusions if he did.
Sadly, a “documentary film” is no longer sufficient to be viewed as a credible resource. Any jerk with a camera can make a film, and there’s a vast number of TV channels that are eager for fodder to fill in their schedule. Hence, junk such as the Fox “Moon Landing Hoax” or the many Discovery Channel shows about soi-disant paranormal phenomena, or the many History Channel shows of revisionist history…
Once, when there were only a handful of networks, they were careful what they aired, and careful to distinguish fact from fiction. No longer.
American Heritage magazine also had a major article on this in the past couple of years, debunking the notion that it was a conspiracy by GM. Unfortunately, the magazine is not searchable online, but the article is by Robert C. Post, “Myth Behind the Streetcar Revival” May-June 1998.
Saying all this is not at all the same as saying that GM couldn’t have supported and encouraged streetcars, if it wanted to. It could, but it’s hard to see why it would have at the time. You don’t have to posit a conspiracy to see that the future belonged to automobiles post WWII or that GM understood that it would be better off by concentrating its investments on the booming auto market and not on the waning streetcar market.
There’s no question but that the gas and tire rationing of WWII propped up public transportation all across the country. It would have taken the continuation of those measures forever to keep the automobile from triumphing. This is inconceivable, so the streetcar and other fixed transportation systems were doomed almost everywhere no matter what GM did.
And while auto culture has lots of well-known faults, what would the alternative have looked like?
Certainly, metropolitan areas would be smaller and more densely populated. But this also means that fewer people would be able to own their homes, since this would force more apartments and high-rises. Mobility would be greatly reduced for virtually everyone, and that means both intra- and inter-city trips. While people decry the malls and big-box retailers made possible by the automobile, they have also brought down consumer costs drastically. Downtowns would be more lively, but also far more crowded.
So the country would be very different, but I would bet that even more people would be complaining about the restrictions and limitations on their lives than today complain about sprawl and traffic.