Taken for a Ride (1996)

Jim Klein: Narrator

Quotes 

• Narrator : Weren't the streetcars making money?

  Barney Larrick : Not after I got done chopping heads off, they weren't making money. Reduce service, make it less attractive to the customer, sell off property and holdings, take the money out, raise fares, suck the company dry, pull the company down. That's what we did.

• Narrator : In the mid-1930s, GM worked hard to create the impression of a nationwide trend away from rail. But there was no trend. Buses were a tough sell. They jolted. They smelled. They inched through traffic. City by city, it took the hidden hand of General Motors to replace streetcars with Yellow Coach buses. In 1936, a company was founded that would grow to dominate American city transportation. National City Lines had no visible connection to General Motors. In fact, the director of operations came from a GM subsidiary, Yellow Coach, and members of the Board of Directors came from Greyhound, which was founded and controlled by General Motors. The money to start this new company also came from Greyhound and Yellow Coach. To hide these connections the company needed a front man. Roy Fitzgerald got his start in Northern Minnesota where he hauled miners and school children in a couple of buses. General Motors would groom him to become president of National City Lines. Over the next few years, Standard Oil of California, Mack Truck, Phillips Petroleum and Firestone Tire would join GM in backing this venture.

• Narrator : This is a story about how things got the way they are. Why sitting in traffic seems natural. Why our public transportation is the worst in the industrialized world. And why superhighways cut right through the hearts of our cities.