Who Framed Roger Driver

The claim is often made that a conspiracy of General Motors, Standard Oil, Firestone Tires, et al killed off a thriving rail mass-transit system in Los Angeles.

This is a myth.

A brief version of why this is a myth is contained in a letter to the editor I wrote that was published in the Los Angeles Times. Read on for the full story.

The current incarnation of this story dates to 1974, when Bradford Snell, a government attorney, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that General Motors and others had conspired to buy up and dismantle streetcar systems throughout the United States. He even claimed that they were convicted of "criminal conspiracy to monopolize ground transportation" in case No. 186 F2d 562, 1949. As we shall see, there was in fact such a court case, and GM, et al were convicted on one of the two counts in the case, but the bit about monopolizing transportation is a myth.

This story got another big boost in 1988, when it formed part of the story in the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" In this telling, the evil character Doom reveals that he bought the Red Car system so that he could

It was owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad until 1953, when it was sold to Metropolitan Coach Lines. In 1957, it was sold to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, which presided over the final dismantling of the line in 1961. Also remember that the Pacific Electric was not really a profit-making enterprise in itself. It largely came into existance in order to help Henry Huntington make money on real estate. The Red Cars existed in order to allow new subdivisions to be built on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Once the houses were sold, the railroad was just an albatross as far as the developers were concerned. This was the origin of the poor service and overcrowding that led to people being unhappy with the