Taken For A Ride – Corporate Conspiracy Against Public Transit

The Great American Public Transit Swindle end.

Taken For A Ride - The Corporate Dismantling of Our American Public Transportation System

The Great American Streetcar Conspiracy

Originally aired on PBS in 1996 “Taken for a Ride” provides an excellent example of what a documentary can and should be… Exposing important historical examples of actual corporate criminality, on this occasion in what became known as Great American Streetcar Scandal. Produced by Martha Olson and Jim Klein, the film begins with assorted contemporary interviews discussing the obvious inefficiencies caused by widespread congestion found on today’s interstate highway system. Then, moving to archival video of streetcar systems, we find a seeming paradox between how streetcars once had been both extremely widespread, as well as serving as an efficient means of public transportation.

The film moves on to show incriminating historical facts surrounding what has historically been called the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy, detailing the methods used by G.M., Standard Oil, Firestone Tire, and others, creating dummy front companies to secretly purchase metropolitan streetcar systems, then deliberately set about sabotaging an otherwise fine public service through extreme route reductions and fare increases. Of course all those cleaner electric trolleys soon had to be replaced with far more profitable, although less convenient, and more environmentally damaging diesel fueled buses along those same previous route lines.

To provide yet another perspective on this needless American tragedy, in 1987 the CBS TV News show 60 MINUTES investigated the whole corporate conspiracy theory, in a segment euphemistically titled: Clang! Clang! Clang! Went The Trolley. With interviews showing Bill Dixon, the circa 1947 prosecutor in the federal case, easily exposing how the conspirators set about to destroy the U.S. streetcar system, finding the entire story to be absolutely true.

From our own 21st Century thinking, with electric cars once again taking to the roads, we should reconsider how the Automotive Industrial Complex cabal went to such great lengths to influence government policy decisions, from the beginnings of constructing the Interstate Highway System, to the complete suburbanization of American public housing during the 1960s and 1970s, to the ubiquitous personal vehicles of today that now whisk us along with programmable, autonomous ease.

Knowing how we were so totally manipulated into this ridiculous situation, and considering where technology might take us in the future, we really need to understand what drove us into this crazy car culture in the first place.