5 ms·

General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy

63 points by nadermx 2y ago

EngCanMan 2y ago
Another look from Not Just Bikes: https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU?si=ncDWw5WDwjdpl9DD https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU?si=ncDWw5WDwjdpl9DD
- chrisco255 2y ago
  Watched a couple minutes of this but the narrator's caustic takes are a bit long winded and distracting. The interstate system was and is one of the greatest civil engineering feats of all time. Prior to the US highway system it could take as long as 2 months to travel across the country by car. And prior to interstate system it would take at least two weeks. It is a shame that many planners didn't anticipate that cities with interstates running through them would grow so densely around exit points and disrupt the grid or chop up the city in various "urban islands" but to call the system anything but a success is just wrong. If anything it's a victim of too much success. I think more cities are aware of this now and you see more efforts to build insterstates at a lower level than the urban core to allow grids to more easily connect and to stop pushing so much local traffic onto the interstates themselves (as in Dallas, Boston and others). Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Interstates to get from city to city are fine and good. Interstates into the city that displaced black communities and created an artificial barrier to moving across the downtown area are not fine and good. Both are true statements.
    - otteromkram 2y ago
      Just because you say something is true doesn't make it true.
      - alistairSH 2y ago
        Sure, but since many cities are actively tearing down (or planning to) those interstates and replacing them with open space, housing, etc, I think it actually is true. So... :shrug:
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    Not-just-bikes has no problem with highways. He has a bunch of videos pushing a term I think he made up called "stroads". Streets are fine (small slow local), roads are fine (big fast and not near people). Only "stroads" are bad, big and fast and yet directly touching driveways, and big cement parking lot deserts with a furniture store in the middle and you can't do anything but drive to or from. I have no problem with his judgement of the shittiness of those things in either case, even if I'm not about to give up my garage and basement and workshop full of toys and tools and parts and materials to go live in some tiny appartment in a building with 20 other apartments and have to hire an uber every time my fart-powered electric bike isn't good enough. I love my car(s) but this pattern of suburban development in north america is just objectively bad. It's like a sort of pathology where some legitimate initial need or pressure produced a response which has by now developed into some wildly disfigured monstrosity.
    - kiba 2y ago
      According to wikipedia, stroad was coined by a civil engineer.[1] Also, while I can't currently find it via google, I am pretty sure that stroad had entered traffic engineers' lexicon somewhere in an engineering handbook. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Gwinnett/comments/1aqdlh4/city_of_mulberry_whats_the_game_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Gwinnett/comments/1aqdlh4/city_of_m...
      - mulmen 2y ago
        Did you mean to post a reddit link? I searched the word “stroad” and didn’t find it on that page.
        kiba 2y ago
        Was meant to be a link to wikipedia.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad
  - floren 2y ago
    > Watched a couple minutes of this but the narrator's caustic takes are a bit long winded and distracting. Ah, your first interaction with Not Just Bikes, I take it?
  - kiba 2y ago
    Why not a national interstate rail system? Roads can still be used for flexible local transportation while railroads are used for mainline logistics and transportation of passengers.
    - dboreham 2y ago
      Assuming you're talking about the USA: it's very big. No other country (except China) uses trains for US-size-wide passenger transport. Aircraft are more appropriate.
    - alistairSH 2y ago
      Mixed answer. One driving factor in the creation of the interstate system was military - we wanted the ability to easily move troops/supplies across the US without airlift or rail. Not sure that's still a valid need (as in, I don't know - would need to ask a general). Also, the US is huge. We do need some sort of road system to get across it. Building rail to everywhere is prohibitively expensive. That said, we should/could have good high speed rail in the densest areas. Like expand the Acela corridor CityNerd does a nice summary of city pairs that should have high speed rail based on population and distance... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4 tl;dr - DC-NYC tops the list (and include Philly and Balt). LA to SF is near the top. Chicago-DET-Toronto is up there. And on down the list. Basically, there's no good reason (other than momentum/history) to not build out solid rail networks over parts of the US. I don't think anybody reasonably expects an LA-NYC link any time soon because flying is a better option for now.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    > Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out. It's worth noting that US cities, even ones in the Western US states, were not always as spread out as they currently are: urban sprawl in the US was caused by the development of highways (and then interstates). Our cities used to have dense urban cores; we intentionally bulldozed and de-densified them to build highways. As random examples: Denver[1], Topeka[2], Sacramento[3] (page 10). I picked these entirely randomly; Google just about any small-to-medium-sized US city and you'll find that it most likely had a streetcar network until the 1930s or 40s. [1]: https://kdvr.com/news/local/denver-once-had-one-of-the-largest-streetcar-systems-in-the-us/ https://kdvr.com/news/local/denver-once-had-one-of-the-large... [2]: https://www.ksnt.com/news/local-news/workers-uncover-topekas-historic-streetcar-rail-system/ https://www.ksnt.com/news/local-news/workers-uncover-topekas... [3]: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Public-Works/Publications/Transportation/Planning-Projects/Streetcar-Report.pdf https://www.cityofsacramento.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Pub...
legitster 2y ago
I researched this one pretty deeply once, and the full story was a bit more complicated than at surface level: - Streetcars of the time were very uneconomical and surprisingly dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tram_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tram_accidents They were not very comparable to modern light rail. - Upgrading/modernizing them would not have been as straightforward as people would think. Think SF's cable cars - everything was small scale, regional, and not-interoperable. - GM et al establishing a trust was not about killing public transit per se, but locking in a profitable bus manufacturing and routes. Transit was still seen as a lucrative industry after the war. - Regardless of the trusts, most cities (even in Europe) moved to buses anyway because the lower operating costs, larger number of riders, more flexible routing, and safety issues. So while they did some shady crap, the idea that we would all be living in dense cities riding subways would it not be for some GM executives somewhere is probably not realistic.
- defrost 2y ago
  I guess the big question here is what makes the USofA so poor at delivering functional public transport? It's not like tram | streetcar services can't be built to run safely an profitably. Trams have operated continuously in Melbourne since 1885 ... The tramway network is centred around the Melbourne central business district (CBD) and consists of approximately 1,700 tram stops across 24 routes. It is the largest operational urban tram network in the world and one of the most used,[3] with more than 500 trams and 250 kilometres (160 miles) of double tram track. It served a patronage of 206 million over the year 2017-2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne Hybrid public transport with trains | trams for major hub routing with buses fanning out from stations work well about the globe. One notable feature of the US was the post war spread of tying personal freedom to car ownership and then to bigger and bigger cars.
  - chrisco255 2y ago
    Australia as a whole is largely forced to hug the eastern coast of the country. 70% of the country is arid desert, so the population is scattered linearly, which is actually quite perfect for rail based transport. The population distribution of the U.S. is far more spread out, so to build enough rail or bus lines to make it so that you don't have to walk more than a quarter mile to a station is impractical for all but the densest cities or denses parts of urban corridors.
chrisco255 2y ago
While street cars were prolific at the turn of the 20th century the horse and buggy was even more prolific. Cars were a replacement for the latter not the former. However as highway systems developed the streetcar became a slower and less convenient method of transport, and especially as the suburbs took off (made practical by the car itself).
- Aloha 2y ago
  Agreed. If you look at the development patterns of any major sprawl-y metro like DFW or Los Angeles, the freeways parallel where the interurban went.
csours 2y ago
I think it's interesting that most Americans do not want to subsidize another person's use of public transit, but they are content to help pay for someone else's road construction and maintenance, to the point that many detest toll roads. === Disclosure: I work for GM, but not on streetcar conspiracies. I will not be commenting on this conspiracy directly.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  People look at me like I’m an alien when I suggest “free” government-provided parking should be removed/converted to other uses (bike lanes, mini-parks, etc). Or at least metered. Massive cog-dis from car-lovers and people who can’t imagine a car-free (or at least car-reduced) lifestyle.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    I completely blew my friends mind recently when I explained that we do not in fact have a right to drive and no, that’s not what “freedom of movement” means.
- rcstank 2y ago
  Check out Stossel’s “Free Market Roads” on YouTube. It’s a fairly interesting report

63 points by nadermx 2y ago

Another look from Not Just Bikes: https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU?si=ncDWw5WDwjdpl9DD https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU?si=ncDWw5WDwjdpl9DD

chrisco255 2y ago
Watched a couple minutes of this but the narrator's caustic takes are a bit long winded and distracting. The interstate system was and is one of the greatest civil engineering feats of all time. Prior to the US highway system it could take as long as 2 months to travel across the country by car. And prior to interstate system it would take at least two weeks. It is a shame that many planners didn't anticipate that cities with interstates running through them would grow so densely around exit points and disrupt the grid or chop up the city in various "urban islands" but to call the system anything but a success is just wrong. If anything it's a victim of too much success. I think more cities are aware of this now and you see more efforts to build insterstates at a lower level than the urban core to allow grids to more easily connect and to stop pushing so much local traffic onto the interstates themselves (as in Dallas, Boston and others). Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Interstates to get from city to city are fine and good. Interstates into the city that displaced black communities and created an artificial barrier to moving across the downtown area are not fine and good. Both are true statements.
  - otteromkram 2y ago
    Just because you say something is true doesn't make it true.
    - alistairSH 2y ago
      Sure, but since many cities are actively tearing down (or planning to) those interstates and replacing them with open space, housing, etc, I think it actually is true. So... :shrug:
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Not-just-bikes has no problem with highways. He has a bunch of videos pushing a term I think he made up called "stroads". Streets are fine (small slow local), roads are fine (big fast and not near people). Only "stroads" are bad, big and fast and yet directly touching driveways, and big cement parking lot deserts with a furniture store in the middle and you can't do anything but drive to or from. I have no problem with his judgement of the shittiness of those things in either case, even if I'm not about to give up my garage and basement and workshop full of toys and tools and parts and materials to go live in some tiny appartment in a building with 20 other apartments and have to hire an uber every time my fart-powered electric bike isn't good enough. I love my car(s) but this pattern of suburban development in north america is just objectively bad. It's like a sort of pathology where some legitimate initial need or pressure produced a response which has by now developed into some wildly disfigured monstrosity.
  - kiba 2y ago
    According to wikipedia, stroad was coined by a civil engineer.[1] Also, while I can't currently find it via google, I am pretty sure that stroad had entered traffic engineers' lexicon somewhere in an engineering handbook. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Gwinnett/comments/1aqdlh4/city_of_mulberry_whats_the_game_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Gwinnett/comments/1aqdlh4/city_of_m...
    - mulmen 2y ago
      Did you mean to post a reddit link? I searched the word “stroad” and didn’t find it on that page.
      - kiba 2y ago
        Was meant to be a link to wikipedia.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad
- floren 2y ago
  > Watched a couple minutes of this but the narrator's caustic takes are a bit long winded and distracting. Ah, your first interaction with Not Just Bikes, I take it?
- kiba 2y ago
  Why not a national interstate rail system? Roads can still be used for flexible local transportation while railroads are used for mainline logistics and transportation of passengers.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    Assuming you're talking about the USA: it's very big. No other country (except China) uses trains for US-size-wide passenger transport. Aircraft are more appropriate.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Mixed answer. One driving factor in the creation of the interstate system was military - we wanted the ability to easily move troops/supplies across the US without airlift or rail. Not sure that's still a valid need (as in, I don't know - would need to ask a general). Also, the US is huge. We do need some sort of road system to get across it. Building rail to everywhere is prohibitively expensive. That said, we should/could have good high speed rail in the densest areas. Like expand the Acela corridor CityNerd does a nice summary of city pairs that should have high speed rail based on population and distance... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4 tl;dr - DC-NYC tops the list (and include Philly and Balt). LA to SF is near the top. Chicago-DET-Toronto is up there. And on down the list. Basically, there's no good reason (other than momentum/history) to not build out solid rail networks over parts of the US. I don't think anybody reasonably expects an LA-NYC link any time soon because flying is a better option for now.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  > Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out. It's worth noting that US cities, even ones in the Western US states, were not always as spread out as they currently are: urban sprawl in the US was caused by the development of highways (and then interstates). Our cities used to have dense urban cores; we intentionally bulldozed and de-densified them to build highways. As random examples: Denver[1], Topeka[2], Sacramento[3] (page 10). I picked these entirely randomly; Google just about any small-to-medium-sized US city and you'll find that it most likely had a streetcar network until the 1930s or 40s. [1]: https://kdvr.com/news/local/denver-once-had-one-of-the-largest-streetcar-systems-in-the-us/ https://kdvr.com/news/local/denver-once-had-one-of-the-large... [2]: https://www.ksnt.com/news/local-news/workers-uncover-topekas-historic-streetcar-rail-system/ https://www.ksnt.com/news/local-news/workers-uncover-topekas... [3]: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Public-Works/Publications/Transportation/Planning-Projects/Streetcar-Report.pdf https://www.cityofsacramento.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Pub...

legitster 2y ago

I researched this one pretty deeply once, and the full story was a bit more complicated than at surface level: - Streetcars of the time were very uneconomical and surprisingly dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tram_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tram_accidents They were not very comparable to modern light rail. - Upgrading/modernizing them would not have been as straightforward as people would think. Think SF's cable cars - everything was small scale, regional, and not-interoperable. - GM et al establishing a trust was not about killing public transit per se, but locking in a profitable bus manufacturing and routes. Transit was still seen as a lucrative industry after the war. - Regardless of the trusts, most cities (even in Europe) moved to buses anyway because the lower operating costs, larger number of riders, more flexible routing, and safety issues. So while they did some shady crap, the idea that we would all be living in dense cities riding subways would it not be for some GM executives somewhere is probably not realistic.

defrost 2y ago
I guess the big question here is what makes the USofA so poor at delivering functional public transport? It's not like tram | streetcar services can't be built to run safely an profitably. Trams have operated continuously in Melbourne since 1885 ... The tramway network is centred around the Melbourne central business district (CBD) and consists of approximately 1,700 tram stops across 24 routes. It is the largest operational urban tram network in the world and one of the most used,[3] with more than 500 trams and 250 kilometres (160 miles) of double tram track. It served a patronage of 206 million over the year 2017-2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne Hybrid public transport with trains | trams for major hub routing with buses fanning out from stations work well about the globe. One notable feature of the US was the post war spread of tying personal freedom to car ownership and then to bigger and bigger cars.
- chrisco255 2y ago
  Australia as a whole is largely forced to hug the eastern coast of the country. 70% of the country is arid desert, so the population is scattered linearly, which is actually quite perfect for rail based transport. The population distribution of the U.S. is far more spread out, so to build enough rail or bus lines to make it so that you don't have to walk more than a quarter mile to a station is impractical for all but the densest cities or denses parts of urban corridors.

chrisco255 2y ago

While street cars were prolific at the turn of the 20th century the horse and buggy was even more prolific. Cars were a replacement for the latter not the former. However as highway systems developed the streetcar became a slower and less convenient method of transport, and especially as the suburbs took off (made practical by the car itself).

Aloha 2y ago
Agreed. If you look at the development patterns of any major sprawl-y metro like DFW or Los Angeles, the freeways parallel where the interurban went.

csours 2y ago

I think it's interesting that most Americans do not want to subsidize another person's use of public transit, but they are content to help pay for someone else's road construction and maintenance, to the point that many detest toll roads. === Disclosure: I work for GM, but not on streetcar conspiracies. I will not be commenting on this conspiracy directly.

alistairSH 2y ago
People look at me like I’m an alien when I suggest “free” government-provided parking should be removed/converted to other uses (bike lanes, mini-parks, etc). Or at least metered. Massive cog-dis from car-lovers and people who can’t imagine a car-free (or at least car-reduced) lifestyle.
- mulmen 2y ago
  I completely blew my friends mind recently when I explained that we do not in fact have a right to drive and no, that’s not what “freedom of movement” means.
rcstank 2y ago
Check out Stossel’s “Free Market Roads” on YouTube. It’s a fairly interesting report