Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always as
Speaker 1: the lovely and effervescent Charles W. Bryant. I'm invescent. I'm
Speaker 1: not effervescent. Your effervescent, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: doubt how you doing, sir? Do you seem like you
Speaker 1: were in the best move today? It's Monday morning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: compared to Friday afternoons when usually record, there's a like change.
Speaker 1: But hey, I'm part up. You sound like it's the
Speaker 1: first week of the rest of our lives. Yeah, sadly enough. Um, Chuck,
Speaker 1: how did you get to work this morning? I drove
Speaker 1: to the subway, then took the subway to work. You
Speaker 1: took the subway, terrible. I drove to work, so let's
Speaker 1: go with me. Good for you. I'm like the vast
Speaker 1: majority of at Lantin's driving to work. Yeah. Um, I
Speaker 1: remember there's the there was this huge This is ultra local,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it happens all over the United States.
Speaker 1: There's this proposed rail line from love Joy way down
Speaker 1: south in this in the southern suburbs of Atlanta that
Speaker 1: was gonna come up to Atlanta proper city. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the people who came out against this came out against
Speaker 1: it like it was a proposal to murder every one
Speaker 1: of everybody's kids, people who live in love Joy. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a love Joy people in every county
Speaker 1: that this rail line was going to go through. I
Speaker 1: mean they were elected representatives that were coming out against it,
Speaker 1: like everybody was arguing against this public transportation. And simultaneously
Speaker 1: they were throwing their support between because there's horrible congestion
Speaker 1: below the city. It's probably the worst in Atlanta. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they fought the Marty going too far north to I know,
Speaker 1: and and always the the and by the way, everyone
Speaker 1: Martha is our public rail system are sad. Sad public
Speaker 1: rail system it forms in in Atlanta is one of
Speaker 1: the major cities in the country. We have a cross
Speaker 1: we have a plus sign for a transit system. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of little UH lines that spur off of
Speaker 1: it now, but not much. I've never seen them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, north northeast and then straight north. And I
Speaker 1: should say in my defense. There's I could drive, I
Speaker 1: guess to you know, Art Center stop or something like that,
Speaker 1: and then hit the railness to right. Exactly. It's great
Speaker 1: for me though, it is, Chuck, you are well served
Speaker 1: by our transit system. But yeah, generally the argument against
Speaker 1: transit is, um that you know, the poor will use
Speaker 1: it to go No, No, they'll use it to go
Speaker 1: rob houses in the suburbs. Oh I thought they thought
Speaker 1: they'd start living along the line. No. The argument I've
Speaker 1: always heard is that it will increase crime. So can't
Speaker 1: you just see people, you know, laden with flat screen
Speaker 1: t vs and you know all sorts of others. You know,
Speaker 1: they have the the burglar mask on and that money
Speaker 1: sack with the dollar sign on it. That they just
Speaker 1: came from some wealthy suburbanites house and now they're using
Speaker 1: public transit to make their getaway. Right. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one reason that it's stalled. But as I was
Speaker 1: saying this, to solve this congestion problem down south, the
Speaker 1: proposal is to make seventy five by seventy five, I
Speaker 1: think from five lanes to eleven lanes in each direction.
Speaker 1: You know, I I wish I had a stat to
Speaker 1: back this up. But I've always heard that making roads
Speaker 1: wider does not do much to East congestion. No, I've
Speaker 1: heard that as well. Cars will fill it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, um, if you build it, they will
Speaker 1: come right. It's like giving condoms to teenagers. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: have sex if you didn't give them condoms, but once
Speaker 1: you do, they're just like rabbits, you know. Ridiculous. Um,
Speaker 1: so chuck the the The debate continues, and I'm actually
Speaker 1: surprised after reading this article we're about to talk about,
Speaker 1: written by our esteem colleague, John Fuller of Stuff from
Speaker 1: the B Side. Yeah, very hip, young, soft spoken man. Um,
Speaker 1: that rail is even alive these days. Yeah. Have you
Speaker 1: ever taken a train ride at like an Amtrak I have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's awesome. I think I went. I don't remember where
Speaker 1: I went. I was kind of young, but it was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's really cool. Yeah, I wish it were
Speaker 1: a little more comprehensive and cheaper and expensive. It is,
Speaker 1: and you also realize it's federally subsidized. Oh yeah, Amtrak
Speaker 1: is is subsidized by federal money, so you can pay
Speaker 1: for Amtrak pal. Yeah, I should take a do I
Speaker 1: get free tickets? Or anything catch on that you can't.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about it. Man. If you look around,
Speaker 1: we take for granted just how much we rely on
Speaker 1: the car. Yeah. Like Fuller points out in this article,
Speaker 1: the very designs of our cities, of our shopping malls,
Speaker 1: and everything is made with the car and mine. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine a life without parking lots. And what
Speaker 1: if everything were street cars and subways and you know,
Speaker 1: trains and things. I can't even conceive it. What if
Speaker 1: parking lots were green space, like you still had your
Speaker 1: shopping mall right, but it was just surrounded by like
Speaker 1: a park. That'd be awesome. It would be awesome. But
Speaker 1: it's too late. Not necessarily. There's a movement from mixed
Speaker 1: use development in walkable cities Atlanta. We have our own
Speaker 1: thing going yeah with the uh yeah, the belt line proposal, yes,
Speaker 1: which I got really excited about when I first started
Speaker 1: hearing it, and then I read the finer points. It
Speaker 1: is great, but it's going to be finished when I'm
Speaker 1: like seventy. Yeah, it's like cool, Maybe I can have
Speaker 1: kids and grandkids will enjoy it. Hopefully it'll be wheelchair
Speaker 1: accessible for you. Yeah. Um, so well, let's do. Let's
Speaker 1: give a little background, right, okay, eighteen thirty two, New York. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it. We're in New York in eighteen thirties.
Speaker 1: There's newses everywhere. Um, there's the Irish are fighting one another.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, so let's not spend too much time here.
Speaker 1: It's eighteen thirty two, and New York has just installed
Speaker 1: the first street rail line and it's horse drawn. So
Speaker 1: we see the little horsey right there, can you hear it? Yeah? Alright,
Speaker 1: let's get out of here. Chuck, Yeah, I see Daniel
Speaker 1: deay Lewis is come. Okay, So now my friend were
Speaker 1: in New Orleans only slightly less dangerous eighty five? What
Speaker 1: do you mean slightly? And New Orleans has just opened
Speaker 1: its first street rail line, and Chuck, if you want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and flash forward with me to two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, take my hand. Okay, all right, here we are.
Speaker 1: The same rail line is still in use in New
Speaker 1: Orleans and it's just as dangerous here. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to the studio. So rail line have been around a
Speaker 1: little while, a long while actually, and longer than the car. Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently there was a what is it called zeitgeist when
Speaker 1: a bunch of people come up with the same idea
Speaker 1: at the same time. That happened with the automobile Germans
Speaker 1: mainly well, yeah, and a guy named Gottlieb Daimler was
Speaker 1: the first. He is widely viewed as the first to
Speaker 1: come up with the real functioning automobile. Right, the kild
Speaker 1: gets you from point A to point b uh. And
Speaker 1: he named the car after his daughter, named Mercedes. Yep.
Speaker 1: He hooked up with a guy named Carl Carl Benz
Speaker 1: and hold on, I've got to say, Chuck, hats off
Speaker 1: to you for your extra dedication to throwing that little
Speaker 1: German exci what was Yes, I thought it was interesting
Speaker 1: to think if it would end up being called the
Speaker 1: Daimler Benz said of the Mercedes Benz good name, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but certainly not now it's the iconic Mercedes ben so uh.
Speaker 1: They were the first ones, like you said, to come
Speaker 1: up with a working car four right, uh huh. And
Speaker 1: years later they looked to America because we kind of
Speaker 1: perfected that that scene and started building highway. So they
Speaker 1: looked at us in there, how to build an auto
Speaker 1: bonn super highway. Yeah, And there was a guy who,
Speaker 1: again by historians is widely considered the man who did
Speaker 1: perfect that scene. As you put it, a guy named
Speaker 1: Henry Ford, industrialist, fascist, eugenicist, well at the very least
Speaker 1: supporter of eugenics, dentist. Why not. Probably in his fare
Speaker 1: time he was something of a renaissance man um. And
Speaker 1: the reason he's credited is perfecting the automobiles because he
Speaker 1: applied the principle of the assembly line. A lot of
Speaker 1: people needed that term. Actually he did. He didn't come
Speaker 1: up with the assembly line itself. He did coin the term,
Speaker 1: but he applied that to car manufacturing and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, making one car by hand by
Speaker 1: one person, which took forever. They just popped it on
Speaker 1: a line and each person had their own job, and
Speaker 1: he cranked out I think fourteen million cars. Yeah, between
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen and nineteen twenty seven they built fourteen million
Speaker 1: Model Ts, which is a huge jump because just in uh,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, there were only two million cars, and that
Speaker 1: was when there were about a hundred million people in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, that's that's a lot of cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's especially for it having been considered um
Speaker 1: kind of like a plaything of the rich. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was almost like a toy and like a personal submarine
Speaker 1: is today. Sure, maybe so. And they weren't even uh
Speaker 1: that well liked at first because they were clunky and
Speaker 1: they smell bad. I know. John said that one of
Speaker 1: the early names nicknames for a car was a stink chariot,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty funny. Yeah, couldn't stink worse
Speaker 1: than horse manure? Or could it could? I guess it's
Speaker 1: a different kind of thing. I kind of like the
Speaker 1: smell of horse manure. Yeah, but what if it was
Speaker 1: coming out like that was the emissions of the time,
Speaker 1: I'd be in heaven. How do you control the emissions?
Speaker 1: I wonder? With the corks right or like, don't do
Speaker 1: like a Kramer did in Seinfeldwani and Ernie fed the
Speaker 1: horse rabby all the years. Um, that was a tangent
Speaker 1: u Chuck. Let's talk about rail lines. Yes, we can't
Speaker 1: forget about rail and say actually opened up the country.
Speaker 1: You know, back before then, John Candy was in a
Speaker 1: covered wagon and that's how you really got around. You
Speaker 1: ended up devolving into cannibalism. It was nothing but hardship.
Speaker 1: There were no roads. Really, basically, you had to have
Speaker 1: a murder rap on your back east to take a
Speaker 1: covered wagon. Uh out west. Well, there were no inner
Speaker 1: states and freeways, there were no local roads. You were
Speaker 1: literally a trailblazer, which is why Portland has that name Trailblazer. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's an assumption of mine of facts. So, um,
Speaker 1: the railways open this up and actually they're wildly successful.
Speaker 1: They actually are are are considered to have created the
Speaker 1: modern and austrial state of the United States that we
Speaker 1: view it totally right. Um, they opened up the continent
Speaker 1: and uh, I think one point two billion people were
Speaker 1: using rail lines every year by and that was at
Speaker 1: its peak, peaked in and that's what that's about a
Speaker 1: hundred and six million people living in the United States
Speaker 1: then carrying one point two billion. So it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that you know, every American was probably traveling by rail
Speaker 1: several times a year or maybe several times a week
Speaker 1: or day, who knows. And it also opened up the
Speaker 1: rest of the country too, ordinary everyday people. Um, they
Speaker 1: before it was pretty much horse drawn carriage, maybe a
Speaker 1: Model T but with with the absence of roads in
Speaker 1: between towns, not very comfortable now no, and they were bumpy, Um,
Speaker 1: people just kind of stuck around their town. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: didn't even leave it where they were born their entire life.
Speaker 1: There are people who do that still today, which is
Speaker 1: just weird. Yeah. I remember when I took my grandmother,
Speaker 1: who lived to be a hundred and one and passed
Speaker 1: away a couple of years ago, when we took her
Speaker 1: to the ocean for the first time. Dude, she was
Speaker 1: like in her seventies, Yeah, what do you think of it?
Speaker 1: She walked out and forget it was like twelve. She
Speaker 1: walked out to the ocean and stood there and went, well,
Speaker 1: it's big, I swear to God, that's all she said.
Speaker 1: Granny Bryant's famous quote, and that we actually called her
Speaker 1: Granny brand That's funny, did you? And she pretty much
Speaker 1: turned around and was like, all right, let's let's go home.
Speaker 1: That was it, go back to Tennessee. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: once you've seen one ocean, you've seen them all pure Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So rail lines are really making a huge impact, but
Speaker 1: they kind of fell to the wayside, even though cities
Speaker 1: like New York and Boston um started offering commuter stops,
Speaker 1: but it was still it was a train. It wasn't
Speaker 1: all that convenient. It was really good for long distances.
Speaker 1: But with the some some refinement of the automobile and
Speaker 1: some huge marketing campaigns and lobbying and some unholy alliances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. Um, the automobile started to take
Speaker 1: on more play, more and more and more of a
Speaker 1: role streamline into the manufacturing they of course, like any
Speaker 1: manufacturing process, I got a little cheaper too. That's huge
Speaker 1: consumer once prices started coming. Ultimately, no matter how played
Speaker 1: upon your brain is by by pr firms, UM, no
Speaker 1: matter how little of a choice you're given by huge monopolies,
Speaker 1: Ultimately it comes down to the consumer's choice. It's something
Speaker 1: that's really easily forgotten. Yeah. We talked about that in
Speaker 1: our econ audio. Yeah, definitely. Um. And when consumers are
Speaker 1: given a choice, they almost invariably choose the cheaper options.
Speaker 1: So when cars started to become competitive price wise with
Speaker 1: maybe rail service that kind of thing, Uh, people started
Speaker 1: buying more and more cars, right, And you didn't have
Speaker 1: to depend on the rail services schedule. Of course, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you were in control of when you
Speaker 1: went somewhere and how far you traveled, and you didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about what the rail line said about it, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is still a criticism today of public transit. Cars
Speaker 1: offer freedom. It's as simple as that. They also offer
Speaker 1: more privacy, to which I think a lot of people value, right,
Speaker 1: and an ability to h engage in road rage, a
Speaker 1: national pastime here in the United States, which is a
Speaker 1: little more removed than subway rage. If you remember, what
Speaker 1: was that girl's named soldier girl? Yeah, who went off
Speaker 1: again on Marta or beloved Marta. Yeah, you can find
Speaker 1: that on YouTube. Still ensure what what would they type
Speaker 1: in chuck Soldia girl? I think s O U L
Speaker 1: j A if you want to watch a nice subway rant.
Speaker 1: Nothing like road rage though. Um so, rail lines is
Speaker 1: kind of fading into the background as far as public
Speaker 1: transportation goes and taking on more and more of a
Speaker 1: role as um, you know, goods, good transportation, commodities, transportation
Speaker 1: right right. But there's also those street rail lines that
Speaker 1: we were talking about. They were actually most cities, whether
Speaker 1: huge or not, had public transportation in the form of trolley's.
Speaker 1: L A Dude was one of the big I had
Speaker 1: one of the biggest trolley and street car lines, the
Speaker 1: red cars and the yellow cars what they were called,
Speaker 1: and man they connected and This is way back then.
Speaker 1: They connected like five counties and it was really vast
Speaker 1: and they were pretty much squashed. But that's what we're
Speaker 1: getting to now. This is arguably the death the death
Speaker 1: blow of public transportation. National city Lines, National city Lines.
Speaker 1: This is where I think it really comes down to.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and say that we found in our research,
Speaker 1: um two views of this. There. I read an article
Speaker 1: by a guy who says that this this the scandal
Speaker 1: is so not everybody is is on board that this
Speaker 1: actually happened the way that it's said, but that we
Speaker 1: do have some facts. Let's do it, chuck. National city Lines. Yes,
Speaker 1: National city Lines was a group that formed made up
Speaker 1: of I think it was about eight companies, but that
Speaker 1: included General Motors, Firestone, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum,
Speaker 1: so clearly the big hitters and what would be the
Speaker 1: burgeoning auto business. And they basically what they wanted to
Speaker 1: do was buy up the street car systems and replace
Speaker 1: them with busses. They did, and they did it quietly.
Speaker 1: What they did was, um, it wasn't just busses, but
Speaker 1: like all the tires on these buses were Firestone, all
Speaker 1: of the gas put into these buses with standard oil
Speaker 1: and all the busses were manufactured by GM. Yes, so
Speaker 1: basically all of a sudden automobiles, whether it was a
Speaker 1: bus or a model TS, that was the way to
Speaker 1: get around. Yeah, the trolley line was dead and it's
Speaker 1: called is referred to as the Great American street car Scandal. Right.
Speaker 1: And also if that sounds vaguely familiar, Um, you may
Speaker 1: have seen who framed Roger Rabbit. I was going to
Speaker 1: mention that that informed one of the sub plots loosely,
Speaker 1: loosely masked, but definitely based on that that whole scene.
Speaker 1: So back in seven there was a guy um who
Speaker 1: was actually a trolley enthusiast. I guess he was a
Speaker 1: wealthy He was from a wealthy family. His name was E. J. Quinby. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was a naval officer. He sounds wealthy. He was,
Speaker 1: but he bucked the family trend of just being wealthy
Speaker 1: uh and took a job managing trolley lines in New
Speaker 1: Jersey after as his first job after college. Right. I guess.
Speaker 1: Then he went into the navy after the war or
Speaker 1: during the war, um, and he noticed what National City
Speaker 1: Lines was doing because he was right there, he'd been
Speaker 1: there while you know, they were buying up all these
Speaker 1: trolley services. So he figured out what was going on,
Speaker 1: and he wrote, um this letter with all this detailed
Speaker 1: evidence to every person he could think of had anything
Speaker 1: to do with federal, state, municipal elected officials and transportation.
Speaker 1: Anybody who had any kind of thing it got a
Speaker 1: letter from this guy across the country. He started this
Speaker 1: whole thing for people to start paying attention to this. Yeah. Really,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, a lot of people say
Speaker 1: that he would have it may not have ever been
Speaker 1: noticed that he not brought it to everyone's attention, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't. Remember he was from a wealthy family. But
Speaker 1: um he he did such a thorough job that National
Speaker 1: City Lines was indicted by the federal government or the
Speaker 1: Justice Department for um anti trust for breaking anti trust laws. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Sherman Anti Trust Act, right, So okay, now we've
Speaker 1: got him by the short and curlies. Obviously National City
Speaker 1: Lines is going to go under. These people are going
Speaker 1: to all be taken out behind the wood shed and
Speaker 1: shot in the back of the head for trying to
Speaker 1: One of the charges was monopolized ground transportation in the
Speaker 1: United States, which is pretty huge very huge. They were
Speaker 1: actually acquitted of that charge, Yes they were, and they
Speaker 1: were found guilty of a lesser charge of guilty of
Speaker 1: monopolizing the sale of buses, which which, let me come on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were found guilty. What happened, Chuck? They were fined
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. The whole thing, the National City Lines
Speaker 1: was just owned by GM. This firestone in standard oil
Speaker 1: was find five thousand dollars, which in seven even wasn't
Speaker 1: that much for corporate, not for all these corporations at all.
Speaker 1: The executives surely had to pay, right, Chuck, they did, dude,
Speaker 1: how much? One dollar? One dollar piece a symbolic fine
Speaker 1: of one dollar, and from an outsider looking in, you
Speaker 1: would see this lesser charge quote unquote, it's pretty much
Speaker 1: the charge, and they just I don't know how they
Speaker 1: got around it. I don't know if there was some
Speaker 1: nefarious bribes or anything like that. I know so that
Speaker 1: some conspiracy folks think so, but it's still hasn't been
Speaker 1: found out. Really, So the the fact that that case was,
Speaker 1: you know, tried and convicted in ninety seven, it's still
Speaker 1: it didn't catch the public eye all that much. It
Speaker 1: was actually a district attorney or federal attorney I think
Speaker 1: named Bradford Snell, who in nineteen seventy four testified before
Speaker 1: the Senate and really drummed up public ire about this occurrence.
Speaker 1: That it happened, uh, you know, a couple of decades before,
Speaker 1: so that it wasn't really considered a scandal or a
Speaker 1: huge nefariest plot until Bradford Snell came about, right, and
Speaker 1: again still not everybody's on the same page about whether
Speaker 1: this was a nefariest plot. No one actually disputes that
Speaker 1: GM and in National City Lines were trying to sell
Speaker 1: busses across the country. But they're saying monopolized ground transportation
Speaker 1: prove it. Uh, you can't really prove motivation like that,
Speaker 1: or clearly the federal prosecutors couldn't. But as as one
Speaker 1: guy pointed out in a Mountain Express, which is a
Speaker 1: paper out of Asheville, and I read a cool article
Speaker 1: in there about this um, the result was still the
Speaker 1: same for the trolley car. So whether that was the
Speaker 1: intent or not, that was still the result. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons why this became such a
Speaker 1: point of or source of irritation among the public when
Speaker 1: Snell came out because that was nineteen seventy four, which
Speaker 1: was kind of right in the middle of the energy crisis,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Well, that was part of it, but also
Speaker 1: it was around the birth of the the environmental protection
Speaker 1: movement we have like the Nasson e p A. And
Speaker 1: people are starting to think about that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think also faith in corporations that had been
Speaker 1: lost time and time again. People were kind of getting
Speaker 1: fed up with it. Right, Yeah, it's a good point. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we were talking about public transportation and cars being in
Speaker 1: a horse race, uh, to see who was going to
Speaker 1: serve or which was going to serve the United States. Right,
Speaker 1: there's also another sub race going on between what exactly
Speaker 1: would fuel those cars. Yeah, oil or gasoline or ethanol? Right.
Speaker 1: Henry Ford design in the Model T to run on
Speaker 1: either one, which is pretty interesting to think back, this
Speaker 1: country could have gone in a whole different direction. Man,
Speaker 1: it totally could have. Ford was actually a huge proponent
Speaker 1: of ethanol. He called it the fuel of the future. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it was, which was kind of weird because it
Speaker 1: had been around for several decades already. It used to
Speaker 1: power all sorts of equipment I think Ford also said that, um,
Speaker 1: one one year's yield of an acre of potatoes can
Speaker 1: be used to fuel the machinery to cultivate that acre
Speaker 1: for the next century. But we went with gas. We
Speaker 1: did go with gas. And do you know why, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I know that gas was just kind of
Speaker 1: a dirty byproduct at the time of oil crew to
Speaker 1: oil production. Yeah, they were looking for kerosene because they
Speaker 1: wanted kerosene to light things. Um, and no one really
Speaker 1: had any use for gas right right at the time.
Speaker 1: But once some oil fields opened up. You ever heard
Speaker 1: of a little movie called There Will Be Blood. Once
Speaker 1: some oil fields opened up in Texas around that time, Uh,
Speaker 1: oil suddenly became cheaper, Gas became cheaper, advances in the
Speaker 1: refining process became cheaper, and ethanol was more expensive. It
Speaker 1: was as simple as that. And Daniel day Lewis once
Speaker 1: again drinks our milkshake, yes, which we've mentioned before. I
Speaker 1: will eat your a long time ago, so chuck the
Speaker 1: I guess with the National city Line scandal going on,
Speaker 1: there was one real last nail in the coffin that
Speaker 1: came from a president, right. Yeah, that was you know,
Speaker 1: the cars weren't in full swing. People were digging it
Speaker 1: and what we needed now was major interstates to connect
Speaker 1: everyone together. And in President Dwight Eisenhower, he signed the
Speaker 1: Interstate Highway Act, which created about forty two miles of
Speaker 1: highway from coast to coast and the rest is history,
Speaker 1: literally the history. UM also that that one act really
Speaker 1: changed the American economy a lot too. Either way we
Speaker 1: spend our money, not just that, I mean think about um,
Speaker 1: fast food is one sure roadside attractions through food billboards.
Speaker 1: Johnald talking about billboards in the article, which I thought
Speaker 1: was pretty uh pretty cool. Yeah, I came across the
Speaker 1: study by these two guys named the Shapiro and Hassett,
Speaker 1: and they they reckon. I guess you could put it
Speaker 1: that every year cars in the highway system, just automobile
Speaker 1: use generates three and fourteen points seven billion dollars for
Speaker 1: businesses in the United States. That's direct. Like you've drive
Speaker 1: up to a McDonald's, um, you drive to you know,
Speaker 1: the mall. This is the fact that automobiles exist generates
Speaker 1: that you know what. You know what else happened to
Speaker 1: help this along? They started, Uh, new zoning laws were
Speaker 1: created and when businesses were built and for the first
Speaker 1: time parking spaces were required, and uh, you know a
Speaker 1: certain amount of parking spaces per business which still exist today.
Speaker 1: And what that what happened was they some cities like
Speaker 1: abandoned sidewalks altogether at this point, and they pushed businesses
Speaker 1: back further from the road in favor of parking lots, obviously,
Speaker 1: and uh, places that were pretty easily accessible by foot
Speaker 1: or by whatever, you know, bicycle, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they were a little further away and they weren't as
Speaker 1: accessible and the the only way he'd get there it was
Speaker 1: by your car. So thanks a lot for that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like, uh, I don't know public transit does
Speaker 1: it have a choice chance. Uh, Well, it's making a
Speaker 1: comeback now, obviously because gas prices are so so high
Speaker 1: now and the car car production has reached I think
Speaker 1: a tenure low last year, John said, dropped eight percent
Speaker 1: last year, but that was because gas was five bucks
Speaker 1: a gallon. And everybody you remember Martyr Ridership went up
Speaker 1: through the roof that like double or tripled, and then
Speaker 1: gas goes back down. Everybody's like, what the heck is Marta? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think people are starting to realize a little
Speaker 1: more a couple with the environmental impact than public transports
Speaker 1: coming back a little bit, but it'll it'll never overtake car.
Speaker 1: Consider this the the Cash for Clunkers program right in
Speaker 1: and of itself, supports automobiles. The recently defunct as of today.
Speaker 1: I think, actually, did they go through all three billion
Speaker 1: dollars already? I don't know. It was hugely successful. I
Speaker 1: know they sold the an estimated quarter of a million
Speaker 1: cars with just the first one billion dollars. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of cars. And I mean, yeah, you say four
Speaker 1: four miles per gallon? I think was the requisite? Was it? Yeah? Weird?
Speaker 1: But yeah, So the American obsession with cars continues, and
Speaker 1: answer this question, why are we so dependent on it?
Speaker 1: How did it become the dominant form of transportation? Because
Speaker 1: it was cheaper at the right time and that's what
Speaker 1: consumers want. So if you want to know more about this,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of cool links on the l on
Speaker 1: my page on this article. Type in automobile dominant form
Speaker 1: of transportation in a handy search bar at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And Chuck, let's plug real quick too.
Speaker 1: What are we plugging? This time's plug? The blogs in
Speaker 1: the webcast. Josh and I have a shared blog called
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know. You can access it on the
Speaker 1: right side of the home page or website. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we write about interesting things and newsy items and people
Speaker 1: getting a little scrappy debates. It's good. It's what we
Speaker 1: do then. Yeah, and social media, my friend. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the Friday blog recap is getting a lot of traffic now. People,
Speaker 1: we welcome you. If you want to say something about
Speaker 1: the show to to log on on Friday, it's in
Speaker 1: Uh tell us what you think? Yeah. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: webcast is live at one pm Eastern Time every Wednesday. Video. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find that on your blog post at that day.
Speaker 1: It's also on new stream and Facebook. Right, So there's
Speaker 1: the plugging. Plugging is over, which means it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. Listener mail, Josh, I'm just gonna call this uh.
Speaker 1: We shall use all powers for good. We have a
Speaker 1: regular kind of a email buddy, Christopher that writes in
Speaker 1: a lot and he's a really cool guy. And he
Speaker 1: wrote in and asked us to give a little shout
Speaker 1: out to blood platelet donation. He is a He and
Speaker 1: his family have been donating platelets for years and he
Speaker 1: says beginning at the end of August, it's a very
Speaker 1: critical time when blood and platelets are needed the most.
Speaker 1: And people know a lot about blood donations and how
Speaker 1: important that is, but few people know about platelet donation
Speaker 1: and other forms of donation that the Red Cross and
Speaker 1: State Blood Services take and what they're used for. Platelets,
Speaker 1: for example, are used for chemotherapy and leukemia patients. These
Speaker 1: treatments destroyed platelets, which are essential for the clouding of blood,
Speaker 1: which is very big deal, and patients frequently require platelet
Speaker 1: transfusions to allow their blood to clot if they get injured.
Speaker 1: Platelets are needed all the time, especially with the increase
Speaker 1: of cancer and leukemia cases in recent years. Blood Services
Speaker 1: also accepts red blood cells and plasma to help other
Speaker 1: patients and people we need. So his family has a
Speaker 1: freakishly high platelet count and when they donate one single
Speaker 1: donation goes to help three or four people in need. Cool,
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and most people single donation goes to help
Speaker 1: at least two patients. So he said, it takes a
Speaker 1: little longer, about an hour and forty five minutes, which
Speaker 1: is one reason why they don't get as many donations.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's just the process though, and they really
Speaker 1: need it. So we just want to encourage folks to
Speaker 1: uh he actually wanted just the podcast about it. So
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do that one day. But go give blood
Speaker 1: platelets people. Did you know that my girlfriend's blood saves infants? Really?
Speaker 1: She lacks the type of her pies that most people
Speaker 1: get by age five. Um so, but you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to get it before age five. Very few people, um
Speaker 1: are without this type of herpes. She's one of them.
Speaker 1: So her blood is used directly to save infants. How
Speaker 1: crazy is that? Did you know that a gaze from
Speaker 1: my wife saves baby puppies all from all over the
Speaker 1: world that she looks upon them. That's very cool. She
Speaker 1: should exercise, should beat that UNI? Okay, um yeah, you me,
Speaker 1: I want to see a UNI and Emily saved down right,
Speaker 1: let's do that. So donate blood platelets and blood and
Speaker 1: plasma and import and Josh and and puppies and Josh
Speaker 1: and are gonna go do that today? All right? If
Speaker 1: you have an email about what you can save, send
Speaker 1: it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works,
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot
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