Here’s a sentence that makes you think: Los Angeles used to have one of the best mass transit systems in the world. But today, the city of Angels is known for its terrible traffic and poor public transit. In the early 20th century, LA relied on streetcars:  trolleys with stops throughout Southern California. But in 1961 the last passenger streetcar took its final ride. Why? Well a popular conspiracy theory blames GM. But is that true? Cheddar explains. 

Cheddar Explains

Why LA Destroyed Its World Class Transit System

Los Angeles. The city of Angels dreamers and traffic, traffic here is brutal. During peak rush hour, you can easily wait over an hour to simply go 14 miles. This is insane traffic and on the other side. I'm scared to get back and while public transportation exists, it's unfavorable with ridership continuing to plummet. So it may come as a surprise that L. A. Used to have one of the country's, if not the world's best public transportation systems, relying on rail cars. No, seriously, it was so vast. It had over 1000 miles of track more than twice what the southern California's commuter rail system operates on today. So what happened is a widespread conspiracy theory pinning the blame on general motors and other automakers true or did the system collapse? For other reasons. So for that answer, let's head to L. A. Our story begins in the late 19th and early 20th century. Not with the public transit aficionado, but with this guy, Henry Huntington's a real estate tycoon C he wanted Angelenos to view and buy property and surrounding areas. So we organized a railway company called pacific Electric. These rail carts allowed people to travel long distances and build homes while still being connected to the city. And boy did they? The railway connected cities and counties all the way from riverside to San Bernardino to orange to Los Angeles and more. While subsequently building up suburbs like Pomona Burbank and Alhambra. By 1910, these red cars reached four counties spanning over 1200 miles of track and at their peak everyone wrote them blue and white collar workers, ladies who lunch, mothers, Children, you name it. So you could take it up to the mountains to go hiking and you could go out to the beach. It was absolutely comprehensive. I mean the map of the early streetcar system looks like a spider web essentially around Greater Los Angeles. The bones of that system actually still visible today. Hey mister ain't you got a car who needs a car in L. A. We got the best public transportation system in the world. They were convenient and actually pretty speedy reaching at their peak, up to 40 to 50 MPH. There eventually consolidated into two systems, the red cars and the yellow cars in L. A. With the red cars being more of a sort of long distance way to get around. Yellow cars, focused more around the urban center of downtown L. A. And often there. But in 1961, the last car took its final ride. So why the collapse? Well, one long standing conspiracy theory pins the blame on General Motors enter the streetcar scandal. Back in 1945 a corporation called National City lines, who was already operating transit systems in over 25 american cities acquired the L. A. Railway Afterward, busses began replacing trolleys. Why? Well, National City lines had more on their minds than just keeping a good transit system going. They had big name auto investors to please, including none other than General Motors. So the thought goes like this. General Motors had paid essentially to buy up the streetcar line and convert it to a bus route. And so that's really the heart of the conspiracy theory that therefore General Motors was surreptitiously behind buying up all these streetcar lines. GM, among others in the auto industry would benefit from a transit system which relied on gasoline and rubber rather than electricity and rails. There's definitely some truth to the idea that GM and other corporations were up to no good. In 1947 the federal District Court of southern California actually indicted nine corporations and seven individuals, including GM due to violations of the Sherman antitrust act. And they were convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize sales of busses and supplies to companies owned by National City lines. GM paid a $5,000 fee which is roughly equivalent to $59,000 today. And if you've ever seen the movie, who framed Roger Rabbit, a wildly famous scene nods to the theory. Nobody's going to drive this lousy freeway when they could take the red car for a nickel. They'll drive. They'll have to, you see, I bought the red car so I could dismantle it. This makes for an iconic movie scene, but the truth is a little more complicated and sadly a little less Hollywood ready first, let's dive into what was going on at the time, These trolleys faced a lot of difficulties. Ridership began to decline in the 1920s. As automobiles became a new popular option, people began switching their fares for cars. Some suburbs like Pomona even began to switch from trolleys to busses at the time since busses didn't need tracks and could easily reroute other American cities also followed suit. And by the end of the 1920s, about 20% of the cities nationwide used only busses, even pacific electric had ordered a few busses. Streetcars also faced a number of labor shortages and strikes. The decline continued. With the Great Depression, Ridership fell 50% by 1933, it dropped another 50% the following year and at that point the cars were largely a neglected and unpleasant option. Plus the cars now had to share the streets with busses which made them slower and more vulnerable to traffic jams during the world wars. Thanks to gas rationing, ridership briefly picked up, but it didn't last long. And overall, the system was losing money. Between 1945 to 1951, the number of riders felt by 80 million after World War Two, it was slowly dismantled by the 19 forties, you saw the first, basically modern freeway built in the country and there was a big vision for how freeways. We're gonna crisscross Los Angeles make driving easier and that was where people wanted to put, you know, public dollars. You know, some of the early gas taxes were passed at the local level first and state level to help fund this infrastructure. The air view shows how engineers have overcome complex traffic problems by building a network of broad, major freeways, which extends throughout the city. So in 1961, the last passenger rail car finished its ride. So all of these pressures are the real reasons. But there's one important detail remember how we told you in the beginning, how this real estate tycoon established lines to help sell real estate. Well, that essentially led to its demise. These rail cars were never created to be public transportation. It was privately funded and no government agency's owned or operated it at its core. It was a way to help real estate developers make more money and ultimately it just wasn't sustainable. Do you think if it was publicly like funded government funded and all of that, it could have still had some success. There definitely was a choice that local L. A. Leaders could have made really, starting in the late twenties when it became apparent what was happening. Are they going to accommodate the automobile or are they going to continue a more trance oriented lifestyle? And at that point they really jumped all in on the automobile, which leads us to today, pacific electric, nothing but a relic here we are in downtown L. A. This is specific electric and now it's been converted into pacific electric loss. Mhm. And how about ella's public transportation system. Well, it still relies heavily on busses. The city does have a metro and has been investing in more comprehensive rail networks in the last few decades. But getting people to ride isn't an easy task, especially after covid experts say solutions are centered primarily around urban replanning plus it's difficult to break a decades long habit of car usage. But the fact is downtown L. A. Has been losing jobs as a percentage of the overall jobs in the region and you get the job sprawl along with the residential sprawl. And that's when you just get kind of what we call a horizontal density which is really the worst to have because it's hard to solve that with a functional transit system. Until then they say it will be hard for ridership to take off and then comes the politics of it all local land use battles. Homeowners don't want to see new apartments while car commuters don't want Elaine taken. These are the battles now that have to be fought neighborhood by neighborhood and the state and federal government can help with funding and with incentives to make that happen. But I think that's kind of the vision going forward. I think we can have a much more sustainable future in L. A. With rail as sort of the way to organize it. But then filling in around that with other transit modes and and other types of neighborhoods that are more convenient and pleasant for people to live in