Did General Motors destroy the LA mass transit system?

[Undertow]

I thought this was an interesting little article Loungers might appreciate.

Did General Motors destroy the LA mass transit system?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I agree with Cecil Adams.

 

[dhermann1]

This has been kicked around for many years. I think this is a well reasoned explanation This was not the only place this happened. In New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, great crusading reformer that he was, had an absolute vendetta against street cars. Seems he thought of them as emblematic of old fashionedness. He put a lot of effort intio getting rid of them, and introducing buses.

 

[bil_maxx]

In cities across the US and Canada, GM actively pulled up street car tracks to "help" cities struggling with the expense of doing it themselves. They also took down all of the electrical wiring that powered the streetcars. They had virtually no pollution output as they were all electric.

Here in Toronto, 95% of the overhead wires were taken down by GM to "help" the city get rid of them as they were considered eyesores. In reality, they approached a few shady transit officials and were allowed to do it for certain favours. Now the city wants to put them back and electrify the buses but the cost will be in the BILLIONS. What an incredible waste of resources and powerful way to protect your market for decades. Absolutely scandalous.

 

[Doctor Strange]

But I thought Judge Doom was behind dismantling the Red Car!

And dhermann1, don't forget Robert Moses' role in automobilizing NYC. Not a foot of new track - subway, streetcar, or railroad - was built during his tenure as public works czar (under a half-dozen different agencies/titles) from the late thirties to early sixties.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Way down in South America ... Santiago, Chile had one of the continent's earliest streetcar systems. Its decline and eventual removal paralleled the fate of Los Angeles's streetcars.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

...don't forget Robert Moses' role in automobilizing NYC. Not a foot of new track - subway, streetcar, or railroad - was built during his tenure as public works czar (under a half-dozen different agencies/titles) from the late thirties to early sixties.

Ah, you've read Robert Caro's THE POWER BROKER: ROBERT MOSES AND THE FALL OF NEW YORK. Magnificent book!

 

[C-dot]

In cities across the US and Canada, GM actively pulled up street car tracks to "help" cities struggling with the expense of doing it themselves. They also took down all of the electrical wiring that powered the streetcars. They had virtually no pollution output as they were all electric.

Here in Toronto, 95% of the overhead wires were taken down by GM to "help" the city get rid of them as they were considered eyesores. In reality, they approached a few shady transit officials and were allowed to do it for certain favours. Now the city wants to put them back and electrify the buses but the cost will be in the BILLIONS. What an incredible waste of resources and powerful way to protect your market for decades. Absolutely scandalous.

The TTC is just one example of this - It happens all over the world. Though it isn't privatized, they're toying with options like getting rid of the streetcar completely (Judge Doom is alive and well), selling subway names to businesses for profit ("You transfer at Loblaws station..."), and they've already put money into building a completely useless new subway line in the part of town that least needs it.

I love the streetcar. It's part of Toronto's history, it's electric, and it gets me places. I only hope they leave it alone long enough that the new mayor will reverse the decision to eradicate it.

 

[David Conwill]

If anybody needs a little good news, the restoration of light rail on the Woodward Avenue corridor in Detroit, Michigan seems to be proceeding fairly smoothly.

It's ironic that Detroit, longtime home of General Motors, didn't end streetcar service until 1956, about 35 years after most other Michigan municipalities.

And yeah, I have no love lost for Robert Moses either.

-Dave

 

[Rathdown]

In cities across the US and Canada, GM actively pulled up street car tracks to "help" cities struggling with the expense of doing it themselves. They also took down all of the electrical wiring that powered the streetcars. They had virtually no pollution output as they were all electric.

Here in Toronto, 95% of the overhead wires were taken down by GM to "help" the city get rid of them as they were considered eyesores. In reality, they approached a few shady transit officials and were allowed to do it for certain favours. Now the city wants to put them back and electrify the buses but the cost will be in the BILLIONS. What an incredible waste of resources and powerful way to protect your market for decades. Absolutely scandalous.

Bill, could you possibly provide some sort of factual support for your comments?

I only ask because, as far as I know, in Los Angeles the cost of removing the tracks was prohibitive (even counting their scrap value) and in all but a few instances they were simply paved over.

 

[Undertow]

Bill, could you possibly provide some sort of factual support for your comments?

I only ask because, as far as I know, in Los Angeles the cost of removing the tracks was prohibitive (even counting their scrap value) and in all but a few instances they were simply paved over.

As I recall (and that recollection is quite hazy), the same went for many areas in Des Moines. Boulevards were created with curbs and grass, rail was buried and paved over. One prime example is Urbandale Avenue which had light rail in the center of regular traffic going North/South. As a child, I'd seen some of these rails during road work, but that was 25 years ago, and they were eventually reburied.

My grandmother and I discuss this occassionally as she grew up in the Beaverdale neighborhood where one of many rails existed. She said no one was alive to really remember the line anymore. The introduction of busses, the spreading out of population, the already decaying downtown Des Moines businesses and the boom of personal autos lead to a quick demise of our extensive rail service.

There's been discussion of reviving a light rail system downtown, but Des Moines is such a regressive, knock-a-building-down-and-build-a-parking-ramp kind of city, I doubt very much that we'll see one anytime soon.

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

I love the Red Cars.

How can you say "No" to this?!

This is a really depressing picture.

You can still see some Red Cars here (and ride them!):

http://www.oerm.org/ (Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA)

The conspiracy about the streets cars is mentioned in the 1988 movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" I'm sure this help to put more fuel to the fire. I think the true sad reason for losing our beloved Red Cars is that they just didn't fit in our "modern" society. Los Angeles kept growing and everything got more spread out. Cars would have been much more convenient way to get around town. A few places now have their own "Red Car" line. In San Pedro, you can ride on a replica of a 1909 PE Red Car. California Adventures (the park right across from Disneyland), is going to have their own version of a Red Car line. So there's still the nostalgia about them.

http://www.sanpedro.com/spcom/redcar.htm

http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/red-car-trolley-disn-7382/

They are not streetcars, but San Francisco almost lost their iconic Cable Cars.

You can read more about that here. Sorry about the outdated article:

http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/60th_Anniversay.html

 

[C-dot]

The red car is beautiful, Deco Doll. I have no idea how old ours are, but I never get tired of seeing them go by:

Rathdown, there has been intense scrutiny on Toronto City Hall and the TTC for a number of years. I'm not sure how much factual evidence is available, but the rumours exist. Many of the original overhead wires are still in place, as are the tracks - Though much money and time has gone into ripping them up and putting new ones back down. Another wasted venture was the introduction of streetcar platforms, which confused cyclists and pedestrians alike and are now being removed.

I don't believe it would be a case of simply paving them over in Toronto, because of the way the roads are constructed. It's hard to describe, but anyone who has seen it would know what I meant.

 

[Rathdown]

Rumours and innuendos abound about so many things that I always find it hard to accept sweeping statements that paint any group (or corporation) as evil... I really do not approve of scapegoating, and so when presented with a statement that begins "X is responsible for 95% of the world's misery..." I find that I am constitutionally unable to accept it unless plain, unvarnished, fact is presented to back up the assertion.

I personally loathed the Red Cars because of the overhead wires that made such a dog's dinner of the cityscape of down town Los Angeles. One of my requirements when moving to the USA four years ago was that we settle in a place where the wires were underground. Where I now live the city provides free tram service, and the trams (or so I am told) run on clean burning LPG, with not a wire overhead in our down town area.

 

[Warden]

According to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", yes

 

[DanielJones]

Fortunately, light rail is alive and well in the Portland Metro area. We use it every chance we get, that way we don't have to drive far and we save on gas & emissions. Sure wish we could talk my brother-in-law into using more regularly.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Oldsarge]

The Red Cars were dying for years before service was discontinued. Especially after WWII people craved the consumer goods they hadn't been able to buy during the rationing years and one of the first big things people bought were new cars. Light rail didn't stand a chance back then. The only thing that would have saved it would have been prohibitively high taxes on automobiles and that was a political impossibility!