Moving millions: An inside look at mass transit

by Stan Fischler

300 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Kristofer Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from the university library nearly twenty years ago, using it as source material for a college paper. It made such an impression upon me that I finally purchased a copy online.

Today the subject of mass transit is a political hot button issue, with one side claiming it is a statist ploy, and another saying it is a practical and necessary alternative means of transport. What is interesting to me is that years ago mass transit, in the form of trolleys (a.k.a. light rail), was the popular option, and it was a combination of government power and corporate greed that led to the demise of the trolley systems in favor of buses and automobiles. (NOTE: in a survey, passengers preferred trolleys to buses by a 20 to 1 margin.)

In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", one of the laugh lines comes when Eddie Valiant remarks that no one needs to own a car on Los Angeles, because they had the best mass transit in the world. And it was actually true, until the Los Angeles city government sold the mass transit franchise to a holding company funded by General Motors --- who proceeded to convert from trolleys to buses, then sold the franchise with the proviso that it never be converted back to trolleys. You see, GM built buses, but not trolleys.

What happened in Los Angeles happened in city after city across the country, until mass transit was basically dead, and the private automobile became a cultural icon, changing the very nature of city life and leading to the rise of suburban sprawl (accelerated by the development of the Interstate Highway system --- it wasn't all GMs fault, of course.)

The importance of this book is not only in the specific story it tells, but also for the understanding of how corporations and government often serve each other's interests at the expense of the public good. This is not a new thing, but is the essence of modern capitalism (made possible with changes made to the nature of corporations during the civil war, as a means of getting the transcontinental railroad built; for more information, see the book "Nothing Like it in the World."

[Dick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very few books cover the history of mass transportation. Stan Fischler does a good job covering the history of transit from the streetcar viewpoint--he is definitely biased toward streetcars and against buses. Regardless of the bias, though, this is a good book to read if you want to know what it was like during the early part of the twentieth century, when the private automobile was still the domain of the rich. He also traces the decline of mass transit use, as the car and the ability to keep one's own schedule vs. relying on scheduled streetcar/bus service drew people away from streetcar tracks and toward car lots.

The book also espouses the "GM conspiracy theory", in which General Motors, Firestone, and the National Oil Company are alleged to have conspired to close down streetcar companies, forcing consumers into using (GM) cars or "inferior" (according to Fischler) bus service. The end of the book contains both Bradford Snell's testimony before Congress and GM's reply to Snell. Whether or not the reader accepts the theory as true, the book still gives a solid grounding as to the source of the theory and General Motors' rebuttal.

For those interested in public transit history, besides Fischler, I would also recommend Brian Cudahy's "Cash, Tokens, and Transfers".