[OT] Public Transit

[Mel Wilson]

On 10-10-27 01:36 PM, phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org wrote:

> I think we're talking about two different periods of history. I'm
> referring to something much earlier.
> =========================================
> Indeed, in the 1920s automaker General Motors (GM) began a covert campaign
> to undermine the popular rail-based public transit systems that were
> ubiquitous in and around the country’s bustling urban areas. At the time,
> only one in 10 Americans owned cars and most people traveled by trolley
> and streetcar.
>
> Within three decades, GM, with help from Standard Oil, Firestone Tire,
> Mack Truck and Phillips Petroleum, succeeded in decimating the nation’s
> trolley systems, while seeing to the creation of the federal highway
> system and the ensuing dominance of the automobile as America’s preferred
> mode of transport.
> ==========================================

I see from the internets that Hawker Siddley bought Canadian Car & 
Foundry which was producing streetcars in Montreal around 1921 for 
many Canadian markets, including Toronto.  What their lobbying power 
might have been, I can't find.  In the 1920s these would have been the 
large and small Peter Witt cars.  The Preston Car Company and Ottawa 
Car Company were also building them.

CC&F had been building buses in Fort William, until Hawker Sidley 
transferred rail production there, so Bombardier's streetcars from 
Thunder Bay have a long history.

There's a good book, _Internal Combustion_ by Edwin Black, detailing 
the development of the modern automobile.  Late on it covers the 
GM/Firestone/Standard Oil takeover.  It starts with the Ford/Edison 
electric automobiles, industrial shenanigans, and a patent troll.  Fun.

	Mel.

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists