Greetings! Though this is a Bunker Hill blog, I will on occasion cover tangentially-related subjects (like Chavez Ravine or Cooper Donuts, or even Disneyland), especially if there’s debunking to be done. Today’s debunking, though, is altogether unrelated to Bunker Hill. After being told for the millionth time that Roger Rabbit is a documentary, I’m finally giving in to my overpowering, long-fermented urge to douse the fervid, fervent flames of the “Los Angeles Streetcar Conspiracy” narrative.
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Los Angeles has a dark and hidden history, and here’s part of it you should know: we once had the largest, best run, most efficient, most beloved, most profitable, publicly owned streetcar system in the world. The Red Cars! But! The bloated plutocrats and greasy oligarchs said NO! Profits over people! A cackling cabal of big oil, big tire, and big auto conspired to buy up all the Red Cars and destroy them! Which they did! Then they needlessly replaced them with horrible nasty busses which people disliked so much they all went out and bought cars! And that, my friend, is the reason we now live in a dystopic autopian hellscape of traffic and smog and sprawl…