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this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

in general, public transport before world war II was generally privately owned. it was a business, like railroads had been since the start of the industrial age. nobody liked the privately owned monopolies that owned public transit. 2/

basically, these monopolies dominated metro areas, because they weren't just the transport monopoly. in la, oakland and miami, the train company was the biggest real estate developer. in atlanta, new jersey and new orleans, they were the power company. 3/

these monopolies were hilariously corrupt as well, and they had few friends. henry huntington (of LA's red cars), or charles yerkes (of the chicago eleveated) were as detested as bezos and zuckerberg were today. 4/

Also, transit fares were fixed, on a nominal basis, by state and local statute years before the US went off the gold standard and secular inflation became a thing.

And rail transit maintenance + expansion costs were already rising even before broad inflation, meaning private owners were essentially signing their own death warrants by agreeing to the fixed fare

in many cases, the train company was _also_ the bus company! the pacific electric railway in LA also owned the motor transit company, which ran the region's buses. 6/

But to get back to how badly the trains needed upgrades, let's compare like with like. Here's a sample trip from Downtown LA to Culver City. - LA Metro E line (2026): 30 minutes - Motor Transit Co. bus (1948): 39 minutes - Pacific Electric Railway (1948): 43 minutes 7/

This looks like the perfect place to drop the 1928 Pacific Electric schedule book, which includes buses!

On top of that, the new, shiny buses often had A/C, and the streetcars only had fans. The first air-conditioned bus was introduced in 1946. The first air-conditioned streetcars weren't introduced until 1976. 8/