This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, June 1st, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

Streetcars remind us of bygone times, and that's a good thing. Streetcars have a poor record of

promoting urban revitalization. Buses though not quite as sexy are a much

better deal overall. So says Randall O'Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

In who framed Roger Rabbit, there's a great conspiracy to, one, replace Tune Town, two, replace streetcars with highways, with a freeway

specifically, and Eddie the main Bob Hoskins in who framed Roger

Abbott says why would anyone get in their car and drive on a freeway when they can take the red line for a nickel?

I think that's the line.

How does that story fit here?

Well, there is a myth that there is a streetcar conspiracy that General Motors bought up all the streetcar companies and changed them to buses to force people off the streetcars and force them to buy cars, the assumption being that buses were worse than streetcars.

The reality is that buses were so much more flexible and efficient in streetcars

that streetcar companies all over the country changed from streetcars to buses as fast as they could.

General Motors took advantage of this by buying a handful of those companies as they were

changing from streetcars to buses, but it didn't order them to change streetcars to buses. In fact, some companies

that actually bought new streetcars for them because that's what they were doing, and they

continued to operate streetcars until General Motors sold the companies.

Yet there is a streetcar conspiracy today,

and that's a conspiracy of streetcar builders and designers

who are working together with politicians to try to

persuade taxpayers to build new streetcar lines in this country.

And the bait is the claim that if you build a streetcar line it will lead

to economic redevelopment of your blighted downtown. And the reality is that building that line will do nothing for your blighted downtown

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