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Claiming that GM purchased streetcar systems and closed them down in order to encourage people to use private automobiles is not a crazy conspiracy theory. As n

Claiming that GM purchased streetcar systems and closed them down in order to encourage people to use private automobiles is not a crazy conspiracy theory. As noted, that is what happened in the town in which I live. ----------------------- Apparently, we've reached the threading limit and I can't reply to your comment. I don't think it's far fetched at all to say that the most powerful industries in the US would do, could do and did their best to ensure that roads and cities were constructed in a way that favored them. So, whatever.

roel_v 16y ago
No, but that's not what you were claiming, you were claiming that GM (and/or other auto makers) were responsible for the lack of public transport all over the US. I hadn't heard about these streetcars; so I looked it up. Wikipedia had a fairly comprehensive (for an introduction) article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... . There's a whole section in there debunking the effects of the 'conspiracy', most of which sounds like (as a whole) a much more convincing explanation. Note especially that, according to one author, "nationwide, the ultimate reach of the alleged conspirators extended to only about 10 percent of all transit systems - sixty-odd out of some six hundred - and yet virtually all the other 90 percent also got rid of trolleys (as happened with all the tramcar systems in the British Isles and France)."