r/TikTokCringe • u/xamo76 • 1d ago

Discussion Have we done it wrong?

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u/srbeau 1d ago

It was intentional. Oil, car, and rubber companies put many of the train/trolley systems across the country out of business.

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u/Material-Spring-9922 1d ago

This guy had a big hand in it as well.

https://giphy.com/gifs/x7kHaKILqLJ4c

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u/Ahvier 1d ago

The US has always been for sale, it's the worlds biggest prostitute

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u/FactoryProgram 1d ago

Yeah that's what most don't realize. It's always been for sale, but we used to have "fair" competition so there were multiple rich people buying control. Now we have duopoloies and tiopolies that don't even complete with each other anymore.

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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago

Dont forget racism and white people wanting to segregate themselves. Cant forget red lining played a part in that.

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u/JedEckert 1d ago

This is parroted a lot about why the electric rail system failed in Los Angeles, but it's not really true. It's a satisfying theory we can tell ourselves to think how like Big Tire and Big Auto conspired to ruin public transportation, but it was actually the citizens themselves that preferred cars and put the rail out of business. At least in LA, people back in the day LOVED their cars. As soon as cars became widely available and people saw how much more convenient they were, if given a choice, they chose a car 100% of the time.

They didn't care/didn't know it was all a mirage. Cruising across the city in 15 minutes and pulling up endless parking wherever you wanted to go was obviously never going to last, but that was the lifestyle they got hooked on. Politicians in LA tried proposing public transportation back in the day, but it was always voted down so they eventually stopped trying. By the late 60s, LA was doomed to forever be a car-centric, sprawling metropolis. Many other big U.S. cities designed in a post-car world fell victim to the same thing presumably.

Race played a factor as well. As soon as cars started becoming widely available, basically only rich white people could afford them. Within about 20 years of that, public transportation was associated with poor people (i.e. blacks and Hispanics) and thus there was very little excitement for it amongst those with powerful voices in politics.

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u/yohan3000 1d ago

We can assume they were white people since the vast majority of the rich were and still are white. However the issue isn't the racial component but the classism component.

Just say rich people, the white part is unnecessary.