November 9, 2006

By CARLA SAULTER

Last week I wrote about “carism,” the ways in which the infrastructure and attitudes prevalent in American cities (ours included) force the use of cars as the primary mode of transportation. Perhaps the single biggest influence in creating our current carist infrastructure has been the powerful Highway Lobby, a coalition of auto, tire, and cement industries, and the force behind the interstate highway system we know today.

Earlier this year, I watched Taken for a Ride, a 10-year-old documentary about how General Motors, through the holding company National City Lines, purchased streetcar and trolley systems in 40 American cities. The film shows National City Lines purposefully altering operations to make the streetcar system less efficient and useful, then destroying tracks and streetcar lanes, clearing the way for auto traffic. It wasn’t simply about GM buses replacing streetcars; it was about making sure cars would be dominant, even the places most hospitable to mass transit.

When freeways began to appear in U.S. cities in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they were met with a great deal of resistance from the residents of those cities. Many Seattleites were strongly opposed to the construction of I-5 and accurately predicted its negative effects on quality of life. Says Dorothea Norstrand, in her History Link essay about I-5’s effects on her Greenlake neighborhood:

“I-5 took the life out of that neighborhood business core…. One by one, most of the shops disappeared, and most of us who had been able to find what we wanted within walking distance, found it necessary to go farther afield.”

In the face of this resistance, GM and the Highway Lobby leveraged their considerable economic and political influence and then set about convincing the American people that a carist world actually served their interests. Taken for a Ride shows several examples of the Highway Lobby’s television ads. In one, 1950s “all American” families and businessmen sit in their cars, frustrated by noisy, gridlocked traffic. "It's your country,” a voice-over insists. "Ask for better highways and more parking space." Another shows a luxury car zooming down a beautiful, coastal highway, while this text flashes across the screen: Mobility: the Fifth Freedom.

Ironically, elements from both ads could promote public transportation. A scene showing people stuck in traffic seems, after all, the perfect argument against more highways— especially when juxtaposed against a scene that shows these same people resting, reading, and conversing on a fast, efficient train. And though mobility is certainly a form of freedom, Americans would be much more “free” if it were equally available to all citizens, regardless of their ability to afford an expensive, dangerous, polluting (not to mention rapidly depreciating) piece of equipment.