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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2011
In his 1974 testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, Bradford Snell lay partial blame for the decline of mass transit in the United States on a targeted program, spearheaded by General Motors (GM), with the goal of “substitution of buses for passenger trains, streetcars and trolley buses; monopolization of bus production; and diversion of riders to automobiles.” Snell argued that General Motors and its subsidiary company National City Lines were responsible for “the destruction of more than 100 electric surface rail systems in 45 cities including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.”
1. Bradford Snell was an antitrust attorney, practicing with the firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco. He was also a guest scholar with the Brookings Institution in 1972. Through a grant received from the Stern Fund of New York, Snell wrote American Ground Transport in 1973. Subsequently, he was invited to join the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly as a staff member. American Ground Transport was included as an appendix to Part 4 of the Senate Committee's 1974 hearings on the Industrial Reorganization Act.
2. Bradford Snell, American Ground Transport (1973), reproduced as an appendix to U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 4A, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, A-2, A-29.
3. Bradford Snell, Testimony in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 4A, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, 1839.
4. See, for example, Smerk, George M., Urban Transportation: The Federal Role (Bloomington, Ind., 1965)Google Scholar; idem, ed., Readings in Urban Transportation (Bloomington, Ind., 1968); and Yago, Glenn, The Decline of Transit: Urban Transportation in German and U.S. Cities, 1900–1970 (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar.
5. Joseph Alioto, Testimony in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 4A, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, 1797.
6. Exhibit 6, Excerpt from Hearing Before Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee entitled “A study of the Antitrust Laws,” December 8, 1955, pt. 8: Statement of Facts from the Court Records Regarding General Motors in the National City Lines Cases, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 3, Ground Transportation Industries, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, 1820.
7. Ibid.
8. See, for example, Bottles, Scott L., Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City (Berkeley, Calif., 1987)Google Scholar; and Adler, Sy, “The Transformation of the Pacific Electric Railway: Bradford Snell, Roger Rabbit, and the Politics of Transportation in Los Angeles,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 27 (September 1991): 51–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9. Portland Electric Power Company, Annual Reports, 1909 to 1936; Roberts, Edward A., “Life Expectancy of Street Cars,” Transit Journal 80 (September 1936): 305Google Scholar.
10. For a full discussion of the history and characteristics of the three mass-transit alternatives, see Miller, John Anderson, Fares, Please! A Popular History of Trolleys, Horsecars, Streetcars, Buses, Elevateds, and Subways (New York, 1960, rpt. 1941)Google Scholar.
11. “Industry to Replace 70% of Old Equipment in Next Five Years,” Transit Journal 80 (September 15, 1936): 345; “Looking at All Three,” Transit Journal 80 (September 15, 1936): 346. Indeed, NCL did operate a mixed system in both Los Angeles and St. Louis.
12. Portland Electric Power Company, Annual Report, 1924.
13. Ibid., 1928.
14. Portland City Ordinance No. 1065, September 6, 1871 (italics added).
15. Dewees, Donald E., “The Decline of the American Street Railways,” Transit Quarterly 24 (October 1970): 574Google Scholar; Sebree, Mac and Ward, Paul, Transit's Stepchild: The Trolley Coach, Interurbans Special No. 59, vol. 30, no. 1, Summer 1973 (Cerritos, Calif., 1973), 60Google Scholar; “Tomorrow's Street Car,” Transit Journal 80 (July 1936): 219. Costs for vehicles varied, depending on whether the installation was a first installation, on the capacity of the vehicle, on the size of the order, and so on. Estimates for first trolley coaches range from $9,000 to $14,000. Estimates for first PCC cars range from $14,000 to $15,000. Estimates for motor buses range from $1,000 to $10,000.
16. Jones, David M., Urban Transit Policy: An Economic and Political History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1985), 62Google Scholar.
17. Roger M. Kyes, Statement in Exhibit 6, Excerpt from Hearing Before Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee entitled “A Study of the Antitrust Laws,” December 8, 1955, pt. 8: Statement of Facts from the Court Records Regarding General Motors in the National City Lines Cases, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 3, Ground Transportation Industries, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1829.
18. Jones, Urban Transit Policy, 62.
19. Snell, American Ground Transport, A-28.
20. Exhibit 2, “Findings of the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, United States v. National City Lines (Criminal Conviction), 186 F2d 562, upheld on January 31, 1951, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 3, Ground Transportation Industries, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, 1874.
21. E. Roy Fitzgerald, Testimony in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly on S. 1167, Part 4A, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 1974, 1824.
22. Exhibit 6, 1822, 1825.
23. “Street Car Plan Has Opposition,” Oregon Journal, 3 June 1939.
24. “Pepco Tells City Plans Withdrawn,” Oregon Journal, 11 July 1939; “Modernizing for Cars Withdrawn,” News-Telegram, 11 July 1939; “Streetcar Revamp Starts,” The Oregonian, 27 October 1939.
25. “Triple Trouble Brews over Portland Traction Modernizing,” News-Telegram, 24 May 1939.
26. Exhibit 6, 1822.
27. St. Clair, Motorization of American Cities, 89. Meyer, John R., Kain, J. F., and Wohl, M., The Urban Transportation Problem (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28. Portland City Ordinance No. 13089; “Revised Franchise Adopted at Portland,” Transit Journal 80 (March 1936), 92Google Scholar. This movement away from the exclusive franchise was also apparent in Seattle's 1905 franchise to the Seattle Electric Company; that company had asked for an exclusivity clause, but after protest by municipal ownership advocates, the provision of exclusivity was removed. See Berner, Richard C., Seattle 1900–1920: From Boomtown, Urban Turbulence, to Restoration (Seattle, 1991), 111Google Scholar.
29. “Trolley War Out in Open; ‘Insult’ Seen,” News-Telegram, 3 April 1935.
30. Marmion D. Mills, “Proposed Service of the Portland Motor Coach Company in Portland, Oregon,” 1935; “Backing Offered New Bus Concern,” The Oregonian, 18 April 1935.
31. St. Clair, Motorization of American Cities, 111.
32. Jonathan Kwitny, “The Great Transportation Conspiracy,” Harper's Magazine, 1981, 20.
33. Dorothy McCullough Lee, Report to City Council, 26 July 1946.
34. Quoted in “Council Receives Decision of Group on Bus Purchase,” The Oregonian, 1 August 1946.
35. Portland City Council Minutes, 24 May 1946.
36. Gordon G. Steele, Letter to Portland City Council, Portland, 14 July 1948.
37. Gordon G. Steele, quoted in “Illness of Commissioner Halts Hearing on Bus Fare Raise as Expert Finishes,” The Oregornian, 26 August 1947.
38. Gordon G. Steele, Letter to Joel Dirlam, 26 April 1950.
39. Barrett, Paul, The Automobile and Urban Transit: The Formation of Public Policy in Chicago, 1900–1930 (Philadelphia, 1983), 176–78Google Scholar.
40. Ibid., 176.
41. Ibid., 91–96.
42. Ibid., 90.
43. Ibid., 179–92.
44. Ibid., 165.
45. Ibid., 203, 217.
46. Jones, Urban Transit Policy, 63.
