General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy

The General Motors streetcar conspiracy (also known as the Great American streetcar scandal) refers to allegations and convictions in relation to a program by General Motors (GM) and other companies to purchase and dismantle streetcars and electric trains in the 1930s and 1940s. Several of the major companies involved were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

Some believe that this plot helped to cause the mid-century decline of public transit in United States cities. A key proponent of this theory is Bradford C. Snell, whose 1974 testimony against G.M., Chrysler, and Ford brought the issue to national awareness. Snell argued that the deliberate destruction of streetcars was part of a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency.

Others say that independent economic factors brought about changes in the transit system, one writer going so far as to accuse Snell and others of falling into simplistic conspiracy theory thinking, bordering on paranoid delusions.

The story has been explored several times in print, film and other media, notably in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Taken for a Ride and The End of Suburbia.

During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation—bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and San Diego and converted them into bus operation.

In 1946, Edwin J. Quinby, a retired naval lieutenant commander, alerted transportation officials across the country to what he called "a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities—your Electric Railway System". GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

Snell presented his testimony during the 1973 oil crisis, for a United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of streetcar systems. He alleged that there was a wider conspiracy—by GM in particular—to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.

Only a small handful of U.S. cities have surviving effective rail-based urban transport systems based on streetcars or trams, including Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Boston. There is now general agreement that GM and other companies carried out a largely unpublicized program to purchase many streetcar systems and convert them to buses, which they supplied.

There is also acknowledgment that the Great Depression, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership, urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile all helped to cause America's shift away from streetcars. Wrote one author, "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction."