People forget that American automotive companies and all associated industries surrounding the automotive industry (oil, rubber, construction) gutted a lot of American metropolitan public transportation infrastructure and actively (and successfully) lobbied against any further public transportation infrastructure projects. Some choice examples:
>Between 1938 and 1950, National City Lines and its subsidiaries, American City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California (through a subsidiary), Federal Engineering, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—gained control of additional transit systems in about 25 cities.
>In 1963, Alweg put forward a proposal to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for a monorail system that would be designed, built, operated and maintained within Los Angeles County, California by Alweg. Alweg promised to take all financial risk for the construction with the cost of the system to be recovered through fares collected. The supervisors voted down the proposal, mostly due to political pressures from Standard Oil of California and General Motors, which were strong advocates for automobile dependency.
I don't really see any compelling arguments for not expropriating money directly from these still-extant entities and their progeny in order to finance and subsidize the construction of public transportation systems today. Think of it as a form of reparations.
👺 奇诺［流浪者］👹
npub1u5…ukhmd
2025-05-26 23:58:41 UTC
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2025-05-26 23:58:41 UTCEvent JSON
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