How GM ****ed Public Transportation in America

[femurphy77]

I hadn't seen this in many years but it's a sad reminder of what we've become. If you have money, you have power.

[video=youtube;p-I8GDklsN4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4&t=145s[/video]

 

[SnoopLoggyDog]

There are the remains of an old interurban line that runs parallel to Nickel Plate Trail, between Kokomo and Peru. I often wonder what it would be like, if it was still in service today?

 

[d.kaufman]

This is how GM really screwed America, especially the taxpayers who bailed them out.
https://youtu.be/Lvl5Gan69Wo

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

There are the remains of an old interurban line that runs parallel to Nickel Plate Trail, between Kokomo and Peru. I often wonder what it would be like, if it was still in service today?

The building that housed the interurban station in Selma still stands. When it was built, it provided the first electricity to the area residents, but it shut down every evening. I had heard that, from Selma, the tracks went to Parker City and east, and to Muncie and west.

 

[KMaC]

In the 1920's you could live in Danville or Greenfield (or anywhere in between) and commute to a job in Indianapolis via the interurban. A hundred years later Mayor Ballard dedicated driving lanes to bicycles and Marion County residents are being taxed $100/yr to prop up a dying bus system. One of these days we'll decide how we want to move people and get serious about it.

 

[Jeepster48439]

In the 1920's you could live in Danville or Greenfield (or anywhere in between) and commute to a job in Indianapolis via the interurban. A hundred years later Mayor Ballard dedicated driving lanes to bicycles and Marion County residents are being taxed $100/yr to prop up a dying bus system. One of these days we'll decide how we want to move people and get serious about it.

The Red Line is definitely not the right approach.

 

[churchmouse]

The Red Line is definitely not the right approach.

No it is not.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Nashville, TN is trying to get the voters to support a (something like) $9 Billion public transportation boondoggle. Personally, I'm glad I have a car/truck to drive wherever I want, whenever I want. I'm glad I don't have to live in proximity to public transportation and depend on it to get to work, the store, etc. I don't share the fond sentimental attachment to public transportation.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I recall debating the GM/public transport "conspiracy" in a business class in college. I wish I could think of the professor's name, now it's going to bother me. He was a retired colonel and I can picture him. It'll come to me (and not matter to anyone but me, I know). His take was GM wasn't trying to kill the street car, it was trying to be everything to everyone in the transportation market. Even if you rode the interurban, you'd want a car for that "last mile", etc.

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise lays out many of the same arguments.

There's more at the link, but I think it's fairly persuasive there was no intent to kill the street cars and no great crystal ball that it would be the most profitable approach in the long run. It just evolved that way. Some key points:

By the time National City Lines was buying up these streetcar companies, they were already in bankruptcy."
Surprisingly, though, streetcars didn't solely go bankrupt because people chose cars over rail. The real reasons for the streetcar's demise are much less nefarious than a GM-driven conspiracy — they include gridlock and city rules that kept fares artificially low

And paying for this maintenance got more and more difficult for one key reason: many contracts had permanently locked companies into a 5-cent fare, which wasn't indexed to inflation...streetcars had to get approval from municipal commissions for any fare hikes... "Nobody on these commissions would approve fare increases to cover costs, because that would get them in trouble with their constituents," Norton says.

While it's true that National City continued ripping up lines and replacing them with buses — and that, long-term, GM benefited from the decline of mass transit — it's very hard to argue that National City killed the streetcar on its own. Streetcar systems went bankrupt and were dismantled in virtually every metro area in the United States, and National City was only involved in about 10 percent of cases.

 

[actaeon277]

I recall debating the GM/public transport "conspiracy" in a business class in college. I wish I could think of the professor's name, now it's going to bother me. He was a retired colonel and I can picture him. It'll come to me (and not matter to anyone but me, I know). His take was GM wasn't trying to kill the street car, it was trying to be everything to everyone in the transportation market. Even if you rode the interurban, you'd want a car for that "last mile", etc.

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise lays out many of the same arguments.

There's more at the link, but I think it's fairly persuasive there was no intent to kill the street cars and no great crystal ball that it would be the most profitable approach in the long run. It just evolved that way. Some key points:

 

[Trigger Time]

All the buses seem to do is give criminals from the ****holes access to suburban neighborhoods that they don't belong in. And Crime rises where it shouldn't

 

[femurphy77]

There are the remains of an old interurban line that runs parallel to Nickel Plate Trail, between Kokomo and Peru. I often wonder what it would be like, if it was still in service today?

The GF's mom used to take the inter urban from Rushville to work at Allison everyday back in the day. You can still see the roadbed and some of the old bridges along 44 in Shelby county.

 

[KokomoDave]

Glad I work for GM instead of against it!

 

[churchmouse]

All the buses seem to do is give criminals from the ****holes access to suburban neighborhoods that they don't belong in. And Crime rises where it shouldn't

Laff. square is a prime example of this. It was great until the bus line stopped there.

 

[Tactically Fat]

If I could make the bus work for me, I'd seriously consider it.

But as it stands right now - it just won't work.

Pretending that I don't have to take my son to school (preschool - no bussing), I'd still have to drive to a bus stop in Greenwood. I think it's at the Rural King parking lot. Then I'd have to take that bus into down town - however long that would take. Then I'd have to wait on another bus to take me over to the east side. I could get off the bus right at my office, however, as there's a stop IN our parking lot. But that would take like 1:40 total commute time. Minimum. And then I'd have to do it all over again going the other direction. Simply not feasible.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Nashville, TN is trying to get the voters to support a (something like) $9 Billion public transportation boondoggle. Personally, I'm glad I have a car/truck to drive wherever I want, whenever I want. I'm glad I don't have to live in proximity to public transportation and depend on it to get to work, the store, etc. I don't share the fond sentimental attachment to public transportation.

Don't come to GM's defense.... it sounds like they're paying you or something...

I do totally agree with your sentiments. It's just simply not as feasible as many have made it out to be. For example, we have "van-pools" for work because most people commute 30-90 minutes. The van-pools don't save much money because they have to use a commercially owned & insured van provided by these companies that specialize in them. The liability of having co-workers pitch in on gas, or take turns driving their own vehicle in this litigious society has precluded that as a viable option. So these companies, with leased vans and big liability policies are making healthy profits from these "van-pools". Having public transport wouldn't change the cost of the services, it would likely just increase the inefficiency and waste. And you still have to get to a pickup point. So you still have to drive a car unless you're lucky enough to live within walking distance of that point...

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

There's more at the link, but I think it's fairly persuasive there was no intent to kill the street cars and no great crystal ball that it would be the most profitable approach in the long run. It just evolved that way.

Maybe so, but we all know they silenced that guy who invented the "100 mpg carburetor".

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Maybe so, but we all know they silenced that guy who invented the "100 mpg carburetor".

That's what the lizard people want you to think.

 

[dugsagun]

Hehe. i remember a guy i used to work with tho claimed he knew a guy who, we are talking 20 years ago, had some special carburetor that got 50 mpg. If i remember right , as the story goes as soon as he told someone who worked for gm, his car was mysteriously stolen .

 

[DoggyDaddy]

If I could make the bus work for me, I'd seriously consider it.

But as it stands right now - it just won't work.

Pretending that I don't have to take my son to school (preschool - no bussing), I'd still have to drive to a bus stop in Greenwood. I think it's at the Rural King parking lot. Then I'd have to take that bus into down town - however long that would take. Then I'd have to wait on another bus to take me over to the east side. I could get off the bus right at my office, however, as there's a stop IN our parking lot. But that would take like 1:40 total commute time. Minimum. And then I'd have to do it all over again going the other direction. Simply not feasible.

I always tell people I'd be happy to take public transportation, just as long as there was a bus waiting for me at the end of my driveway whenever I wanted to go somewhere. Oh and then it would have to take me exactly where I wanted to go (no stops), and be waiting for me when I was ready to leave that destination and go back home, or to another destination, also non-stop. Is that too much to ask?