[Carmine]

https://la.curbed.com/2017/9/20/1634...general-motors

The basis for the idea that GM and others "killed the streetcar" comes largely from testimony before the U.S. Senate by antitrust lawyer Bradford C. Snell. In 1974, when smog had nearly consumed Los Angeles, Snell argued that "General Motors and allied highway interests acquired the local transit companies, scrapped the pollution-free electric trains, tore down the power transmission lines, ripped up the tracks, and placed GM motor buses on already congested LA streets."

This accusation, however, ignores fundamental problems that the streetcar system in Los Angeles had been facing for years. The dirty secret about the streetcar lines: they were wildly unprofitable and were quickly losing riders. In Transport of Delight, Jonathan Richmond points out that the Pacific Electric line managed to turn a profit in only two years between 1923 and the end of World War II. Meanwhile, between 1945 and 1951, the number of riders carried each year fell by nearly 80 million.

Cheaper to operate and requiring less maintenance, buses began phasing out the streetcars very early. In 1926, 15 percent of the total miles traveled by Pacific Electric riders was along bus routes; that number would more than double by 1939.

By the time that National City Lines entered the picture, the dismantling of the streetcar system was well underway. As The Guardian puts it, "one can confidently accuse General Motors and their National City Lines of nothing worse than scheming to profit from a trend already in motion."

This was the case in LA, and virtually anywhere else they were used. And if you're trying to kill mass transit and promote the automobile, why give the streetcars to Mexico? They drive cars as well.