Be Careful How You Refer to the So-Called 'Great American Streetcar Scandal'

Richard Greenwald's recent very brief history of getting from Brooklyn to Queens was so enjoyable that it was easy to overlook a questionable passage he slipped in toward the end on the so-called "Great American Streetcar Scandal."

Greenwald writes that in the early-to-middle 20th century a consortium of automotive interests (led by General Motors) bought up streetcar lines in a number of cities and converted them to bus routes. He then states that this group was ultimately found guilty in federal court of "conspiracy to monopolize mass transit." A few readers pointed out the cloudy assertions here, but not quite as many as one might expect considering the volume of work debunking this affair, so it seemed worth it to give the urban legend a very brief history of its own.