[PEN-L:8298] Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply -Forw

[Tim Stroshane <TIS1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Forwarded mail received from: PERMIT1:NAL1

I forwarded some of the discussion on California/transit to a
colleague here at the City of Berkeley, one of our transportation
planners, and this is his comment, with his permission.

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• Subject: Re: Re: Re: California Gree -Reply
• From: Nathan Landau <.NAL1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:08:15 -0700

The GM conspiracy theory has little or no credibility in
transportation circles. It's true that a GM-owned company bought
up trolley- based transit systems and converted them to bus
operation. But if it hadn't been GM, it most likely would have
been someone else. Trolley systems were suffering from
disinvestment, and politically it was very hard to raise trolley
fares. Trolleys were increasingly being blamed for blocking
traffic. Large cities could have created off-street rapid transit
systems, but the voters of Los Angeles voted down the Rapid
Transit Plan in, I think, 1927 (even so, about a mile of subway
tunnel was built to bring trolleys into a Downtown Los Angeles
terminal).

The changing dynamics of passenger transportation under American
capitalism did in the trolleys. That's a harder target to blame
than a nice juicy conspiracy, but that's the way it is.

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