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Why is the U.S. so dependent on cars? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always as
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Speaker 1: the lovely and effervescent Charles W. Bryant. I'm invescent. I'm
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Speaker 1: not effervescent. Your effervescent, whether you like it or not,
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Speaker 1: doubt how you doing, sir? Do you seem like you
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Speaker 1: were in the best move today? It's Monday morning. Yeah,
0:32
Speaker 1: compared to Friday afternoons when usually record, there's a like change.
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Speaker 1: But hey, I'm part up. You sound like it's the
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Speaker 1: first week of the rest of our lives. Yeah, sadly enough. Um, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: how did you get to work this morning? I drove
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Speaker 1: to the subway, then took the subway to work. You
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Speaker 1: took the subway, terrible. I drove to work, so let's
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Speaker 1: go with me. Good for you. I'm like the vast
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Speaker 1: majority of at Lantin's driving to work. Yeah. Um, I
1:03
Speaker 1: remember there's the there was this huge This is ultra local,
1:07
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it happens all over the United States.
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Speaker 1: There's this proposed rail line from love Joy way down
1:13
Speaker 1: south in this in the southern suburbs of Atlanta that
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Speaker 1: was gonna come up to Atlanta proper city. Uh. And
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Speaker 1: the people who came out against this came out against
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Speaker 1: it like it was a proposal to murder every one
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Speaker 1: of everybody's kids, people who live in love Joy. No,
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Speaker 1: it wasn't just a love Joy people in every county
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Speaker 1: that this rail line was going to go through. I
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Speaker 1: mean they were elected representatives that were coming out against it,
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Speaker 1: like everybody was arguing against this public transportation. And simultaneously
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Speaker 1: they were throwing their support between because there's horrible congestion
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Speaker 1: below the city. It's probably the worst in Atlanta. Yeah,
1:55
Speaker 1: they fought the Marty going too far north to I know,
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Speaker 1: and and always the the and by the way, everyone
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Speaker 1: Martha is our public rail system are sad. Sad public
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Speaker 1: rail system it forms in in Atlanta is one of
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Speaker 1: the major cities in the country. We have a cross
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Speaker 1: we have a plus sign for a transit system. There's
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Speaker 1: a couple of little UH lines that spur off of
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Speaker 1: it now, but not much. I've never seen them. Yeah, yeah,
2:19
Speaker 1: but yeah, north northeast and then straight north. And I
2:23
Speaker 1: should say in my defense. There's I could drive, I
2:27
Speaker 1: guess to you know, Art Center stop or something like that,
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Speaker 1: and then hit the railness to right. Exactly. It's great
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Speaker 1: for me though, it is, Chuck, you are well served
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Speaker 1: by our transit system. But yeah, generally the argument against
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Speaker 1: transit is, um that you know, the poor will use
2:46
Speaker 1: it to go No, No, they'll use it to go
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Speaker 1: rob houses in the suburbs. Oh I thought they thought
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Speaker 1: they'd start living along the line. No. The argument I've
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Speaker 1: always heard is that it will increase crime. So can't
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Speaker 1: you just see people, you know, laden with flat screen
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Speaker 1: t vs and you know all sorts of others. You know,
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Speaker 1: they have the the burglar mask on and that money
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Speaker 1: sack with the dollar sign on it. That they just
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Speaker 1: came from some wealthy suburbanites house and now they're using
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Speaker 1: public transit to make their getaway. Right. Um. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's one reason that it's stalled. But as I was
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Speaker 1: saying this, to solve this congestion problem down south, the
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Speaker 1: proposal is to make seventy five by seventy five, I
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Speaker 1: think from five lanes to eleven lanes in each direction.
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Speaker 1: You know, I I wish I had a stat to
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Speaker 1: back this up. But I've always heard that making roads
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Speaker 1: wider does not do much to East congestion. No, I've
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Speaker 1: heard that as well. Cars will fill it. Yeah, it's
3:42
Speaker 1: kind of like, um, if you build it, they will
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Speaker 1: come right. It's like giving condoms to teenagers. They wouldn't
3:47
Speaker 1: have sex if you didn't give them condoms, but once
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Speaker 1: you do, they're just like rabbits, you know. Ridiculous. Um,
3:54
Speaker 1: so chuck the the The debate continues, and I'm actually
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Speaker 1: surprised after reading this article we're about to talk about,
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Speaker 1: written by our esteem colleague, John Fuller of Stuff from
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Speaker 1: the B Side. Yeah, very hip, young, soft spoken man. Um,
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Speaker 1: that rail is even alive these days. Yeah. Have you
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Speaker 1: ever taken a train ride at like an Amtrak I have. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's awesome. I think I went. I don't remember where
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Speaker 1: I went. I was kind of young, but it was
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Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's really cool. Yeah, I wish it were
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Speaker 1: a little more comprehensive and cheaper and expensive. It is,
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Speaker 1: and you also realize it's federally subsidized. Oh yeah, Amtrak
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Speaker 1: is is subsidized by federal money, so you can pay
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Speaker 1: for Amtrak pal. Yeah, I should take a do I
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Speaker 1: get free tickets? Or anything catch on that you can't.
4:41
Speaker 1: But let's talk about it. Man. If you look around,
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Speaker 1: we take for granted just how much we rely on
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Speaker 1: the car. Yeah. Like Fuller points out in this article,
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Speaker 1: the very designs of our cities, of our shopping malls,
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Speaker 1: and everything is made with the car and mine. It's
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Speaker 1: hard to imagine a life without parking lots. And what
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Speaker 1: if everything were street cars and subways and you know,
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Speaker 1: trains and things. I can't even conceive it. What if
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Speaker 1: parking lots were green space, like you still had your
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Speaker 1: shopping mall right, but it was just surrounded by like
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Speaker 1: a park. That'd be awesome. It would be awesome. But
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Speaker 1: it's too late. Not necessarily. There's a movement from mixed
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Speaker 1: use development in walkable cities Atlanta. We have our own
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Speaker 1: thing going yeah with the uh yeah, the belt line proposal, yes,
5:29
Speaker 1: which I got really excited about when I first started
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Speaker 1: hearing it, and then I read the finer points. It
5:33
Speaker 1: is great, but it's going to be finished when I'm
5:35
Speaker 1: like seventy. Yeah, it's like cool, Maybe I can have
5:38
Speaker 1: kids and grandkids will enjoy it. Hopefully it'll be wheelchair
5:41
Speaker 1: accessible for you. Yeah. Um, so well, let's do. Let's
5:45
Speaker 1: give a little background, right, okay, eighteen thirty two, New York. Okay,
5:50
Speaker 1: let's do it. We're in New York in eighteen thirties.
5:54
Speaker 1: There's newses everywhere. Um, there's the Irish are fighting one another.
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Speaker 1: It's crazy, so let's not spend too much time here.
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Speaker 1: It's eighteen thirty two, and New York has just installed
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Speaker 1: the first street rail line and it's horse drawn. So
6:11
Speaker 1: we see the little horsey right there, can you hear it? Yeah? Alright,
6:15
Speaker 1: let's get out of here. Chuck, Yeah, I see Daniel
6:17
Speaker 1: deay Lewis is come. Okay, So now my friend were
6:22
Speaker 1: in New Orleans only slightly less dangerous eighty five? What
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Speaker 1: do you mean slightly? And New Orleans has just opened
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Speaker 1: its first street rail line, and Chuck, if you want
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Speaker 1: to go ahead and flash forward with me to two
6:39
Speaker 1: thousand nine, take my hand. Okay, all right, here we are.
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Speaker 1: The same rail line is still in use in New
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Speaker 1: Orleans and it's just as dangerous here. Let's go back
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Speaker 1: to the studio. So rail line have been around a
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Speaker 1: little while, a long while actually, and longer than the car. Um.
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Speaker 1: Apparently there was a what is it called zeitgeist when
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Speaker 1: a bunch of people come up with the same idea
7:05
Speaker 1: at the same time. That happened with the automobile Germans
7:10
Speaker 1: mainly well, yeah, and a guy named Gottlieb Daimler was
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Speaker 1: the first. He is widely viewed as the first to
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Speaker 1: come up with the real functioning automobile. Right, the kild
7:22
Speaker 1: gets you from point A to point b uh. And
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Speaker 1: he named the car after his daughter, named Mercedes. Yep.
7:30
Speaker 1: He hooked up with a guy named Carl Carl Benz
7:34
Speaker 1: and hold on, I've got to say, Chuck, hats off
7:37
Speaker 1: to you for your extra dedication to throwing that little
7:40
Speaker 1: German exci what was Yes, I thought it was interesting
7:45
Speaker 1: to think if it would end up being called the
7:46
Speaker 1: Daimler Benz said of the Mercedes Benz good name, Yeah,
7:50
Speaker 1: but certainly not now it's the iconic Mercedes ben so uh.
7:56
Speaker 1: They were the first ones, like you said, to come
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Speaker 1: up with a working car four right, uh huh. And
8:01
Speaker 1: years later they looked to America because we kind of
8:04
Speaker 1: perfected that that scene and started building highway. So they
8:07
Speaker 1: looked at us in there, how to build an auto
8:09
Speaker 1: bonn super highway. Yeah, And there was a guy who,
8:13
Speaker 1: again by historians is widely considered the man who did
8:16
Speaker 1: perfect that scene. As you put it, a guy named
8:19
Speaker 1: Henry Ford, industrialist, fascist, eugenicist, well at the very least
8:26
Speaker 1: supporter of eugenics, dentist. Why not. Probably in his fare
8:30
Speaker 1: time he was something of a renaissance man um. And
8:33
Speaker 1: the reason he's credited is perfecting the automobiles because he
8:36
Speaker 1: applied the principle of the assembly line. A lot of
8:39
Speaker 1: people needed that term. Actually he did. He didn't come
8:42
Speaker 1: up with the assembly line itself. He did coin the term,
8:45
Speaker 1: but he applied that to car manufacturing and all of
8:49
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, making one car by hand by
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Speaker 1: one person, which took forever. They just popped it on
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Speaker 1: a line and each person had their own job, and
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Speaker 1: he cranked out I think fourteen million cars. Yeah, between
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen and nineteen twenty seven they built fourteen million
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Speaker 1: Model Ts, which is a huge jump because just in uh,
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Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, there were only two million cars, and that
9:15
Speaker 1: was when there were about a hundred million people in
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Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, that's that's a lot of cars. Yeah,
9:20
Speaker 1: that's a that's especially for it having been considered um
9:24
Speaker 1: kind of like a plaything of the rich. Yeah, it
9:27
Speaker 1: was almost like a toy and like a personal submarine
9:30
Speaker 1: is today. Sure, maybe so. And they weren't even uh
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Speaker 1: that well liked at first because they were clunky and
9:37
Speaker 1: they smell bad. I know. John said that one of
9:39
Speaker 1: the early names nicknames for a car was a stink chariot,
9:43
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty funny. Yeah, couldn't stink worse
9:46
Speaker 1: than horse manure? Or could it could? I guess it's
9:49
Speaker 1: a different kind of thing. I kind of like the
9:51
Speaker 1: smell of horse manure. Yeah, but what if it was
9:55
Speaker 1: coming out like that was the emissions of the time,
9:57
Speaker 1: I'd be in heaven. How do you control the emissions?
10:00
Speaker 1: I wonder? With the corks right or like, don't do
10:04
Speaker 1: like a Kramer did in Seinfeldwani and Ernie fed the
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Speaker 1: horse rabby all the years. Um, that was a tangent
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Speaker 1: u Chuck. Let's talk about rail lines. Yes, we can't
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Speaker 1: forget about rail and say actually opened up the country.
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Speaker 1: You know, back before then, John Candy was in a
10:22
Speaker 1: covered wagon and that's how you really got around. You
10:25
Speaker 1: ended up devolving into cannibalism. It was nothing but hardship.
10:29
Speaker 1: There were no roads. Really, basically, you had to have
10:31
Speaker 1: a murder rap on your back east to take a
10:33
Speaker 1: covered wagon. Uh out west. Well, there were no inner
10:37
Speaker 1: states and freeways, there were no local roads. You were
10:39
Speaker 1: literally a trailblazer, which is why Portland has that name Trailblazer. Interesting. Yeah,
10:45
Speaker 1: well that's an assumption of mine of facts. So, um,
10:48
Speaker 1: the railways open this up and actually they're wildly successful.
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Speaker 1: They actually are are are considered to have created the
10:59
Speaker 1: modern and austrial state of the United States that we
11:02
Speaker 1: view it totally right. Um, they opened up the continent
11:06
Speaker 1: and uh, I think one point two billion people were
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Speaker 1: using rail lines every year by and that was at
11:13
Speaker 1: its peak, peaked in and that's what that's about a
11:17
Speaker 1: hundred and six million people living in the United States
11:20
Speaker 1: then carrying one point two billion. So it's pretty clear
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Speaker 1: that you know, every American was probably traveling by rail
11:27
Speaker 1: several times a year or maybe several times a week
11:31
Speaker 1: or day, who knows. And it also opened up the
11:33
Speaker 1: rest of the country too, ordinary everyday people. Um, they
11:39
Speaker 1: before it was pretty much horse drawn carriage, maybe a
11:44
Speaker 1: Model T but with with the absence of roads in
11:47
Speaker 1: between towns, not very comfortable now no, and they were bumpy, Um,
11:51
Speaker 1: people just kind of stuck around their town. Yeah, people
11:55
Speaker 1: didn't even leave it where they were born their entire life.
11:58
Speaker 1: There are people who do that still today, which is
12:00
Speaker 1: just weird. Yeah. I remember when I took my grandmother,
12:03
Speaker 1: who lived to be a hundred and one and passed
12:06
Speaker 1: away a couple of years ago, when we took her
12:08
Speaker 1: to the ocean for the first time. Dude, she was
12:09
Speaker 1: like in her seventies, Yeah, what do you think of it?
12:12
Speaker 1: She walked out and forget it was like twelve. She
12:15
Speaker 1: walked out to the ocean and stood there and went, well,
12:19
Speaker 1: it's big, I swear to God, that's all she said.
12:22
Speaker 1: Granny Bryant's famous quote, and that we actually called her
12:25
Speaker 1: Granny brand That's funny, did you? And she pretty much
12:29
Speaker 1: turned around and was like, all right, let's let's go home.
12:32
Speaker 1: That was it, go back to Tennessee. Yeah. Yeah. And
12:34
Speaker 1: once you've seen one ocean, you've seen them all pure Yeah. Um.
12:38
Speaker 1: So rail lines are really making a huge impact, but
12:40
Speaker 1: they kind of fell to the wayside, even though cities
12:44
Speaker 1: like New York and Boston um started offering commuter stops,
12:49
Speaker 1: but it was still it was a train. It wasn't
12:51
Speaker 1: all that convenient. It was really good for long distances.
12:54
Speaker 1: But with the some some refinement of the automobile and
12:58
Speaker 1: some huge marketing campaigns and lobbying and some unholy alliances. Yeah,
13:04
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. Um, the automobile started to take
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Speaker 1: on more play, more and more and more of a
13:10
Speaker 1: role streamline into the manufacturing they of course, like any
13:15
Speaker 1: manufacturing process, I got a little cheaper too. That's huge
13:17
Speaker 1: consumer once prices started coming. Ultimately, no matter how played
13:22
Speaker 1: upon your brain is by by pr firms, UM, no
13:26
Speaker 1: matter how little of a choice you're given by huge monopolies,
13:30
Speaker 1: Ultimately it comes down to the consumer's choice. It's something
13:33
Speaker 1: that's really easily forgotten. Yeah. We talked about that in
13:35
Speaker 1: our econ audio. Yeah, definitely. Um. And when consumers are
13:40
Speaker 1: given a choice, they almost invariably choose the cheaper options.
13:45
Speaker 1: So when cars started to become competitive price wise with
13:49
Speaker 1: maybe rail service that kind of thing, Uh, people started
13:52
Speaker 1: buying more and more cars, right, And you didn't have
13:54
Speaker 1: to depend on the rail services schedule. Of course, all
13:58
Speaker 1: of a sudden you were in control of when you
14:00
Speaker 1: went somewhere and how far you traveled, and you didn't
14:03
Speaker 1: have to worry about what the rail line said about it, yeah,
14:06
Speaker 1: which is still a criticism today of public transit. Cars
14:11
Speaker 1: offer freedom. It's as simple as that. They also offer
14:14
Speaker 1: more privacy, to which I think a lot of people value, right,
14:17
Speaker 1: and an ability to h engage in road rage, a
14:20
Speaker 1: national pastime here in the United States, which is a
14:22
Speaker 1: little more removed than subway rage. If you remember, what
14:26
Speaker 1: was that girl's named soldier girl? Yeah, who went off
14:29
Speaker 1: again on Marta or beloved Marta. Yeah, you can find
14:31
Speaker 1: that on YouTube. Still ensure what what would they type
14:33
Speaker 1: in chuck Soldia girl? I think s O U L
14:37
Speaker 1: j A if you want to watch a nice subway rant.
14:42
Speaker 1: Nothing like road rage though. Um so, rail lines is
14:45
Speaker 1: kind of fading into the background as far as public
14:48
Speaker 1: transportation goes and taking on more and more of a
14:51
Speaker 1: role as um, you know, goods, good transportation, commodities, transportation
14:56
Speaker 1: right right. But there's also those street rail lines that
15:00
Speaker 1: we were talking about. They were actually most cities, whether
15:04
Speaker 1: huge or not, had public transportation in the form of trolley's.
15:09
Speaker 1: L A Dude was one of the big I had
15:12
Speaker 1: one of the biggest trolley and street car lines, the
15:15
Speaker 1: red cars and the yellow cars what they were called,
15:17
Speaker 1: and man they connected and This is way back then.
15:19
Speaker 1: They connected like five counties and it was really vast
15:22
Speaker 1: and they were pretty much squashed. But that's what we're
15:26
Speaker 1: getting to now. This is arguably the death the death
15:31
Speaker 1: blow of public transportation. National city Lines, National city Lines.
15:36
Speaker 1: This is where I think it really comes down to.
15:37
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and say that we found in our research,
15:40
Speaker 1: um two views of this. There. I read an article
15:44
Speaker 1: by a guy who says that this this the scandal
15:49
Speaker 1: is so not everybody is is on board that this
15:53
Speaker 1: actually happened the way that it's said, but that we
15:57
Speaker 1: do have some facts. Let's do it, chuck. National city Lines. Yes,
16:01
Speaker 1: National city Lines was a group that formed made up
16:04
Speaker 1: of I think it was about eight companies, but that
16:06
Speaker 1: included General Motors, Firestone, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum,
16:12
Speaker 1: so clearly the big hitters and what would be the
16:16
Speaker 1: burgeoning auto business. And they basically what they wanted to
16:21
Speaker 1: do was buy up the street car systems and replace
16:23
Speaker 1: them with busses. They did, and they did it quietly.
16:26
Speaker 1: What they did was, um, it wasn't just busses, but
16:29
Speaker 1: like all the tires on these buses were Firestone, all
16:33
Speaker 1: of the gas put into these buses with standard oil
16:36
Speaker 1: and all the busses were manufactured by GM. Yes, so
16:39
Speaker 1: basically all of a sudden automobiles, whether it was a
16:42
Speaker 1: bus or a model TS, that was the way to
16:45
Speaker 1: get around. Yeah, the trolley line was dead and it's
16:48
Speaker 1: called is referred to as the Great American street car Scandal. Right.
16:52
Speaker 1: And also if that sounds vaguely familiar, Um, you may
16:55
Speaker 1: have seen who framed Roger Rabbit. I was going to
16:58
Speaker 1: mention that that informed one of the sub plots loosely,
17:01
Speaker 1: loosely masked, but definitely based on that that whole scene.
17:05
Speaker 1: So back in seven there was a guy um who
17:08
Speaker 1: was actually a trolley enthusiast. I guess he was a
17:12
Speaker 1: wealthy He was from a wealthy family. His name was E. J. Quinby. Uh.
17:17
Speaker 1: He was a naval officer. He sounds wealthy. He was,
17:21
Speaker 1: but he bucked the family trend of just being wealthy
17:24
Speaker 1: uh and took a job managing trolley lines in New
17:28
Speaker 1: Jersey after as his first job after college. Right. I guess.
17:33
Speaker 1: Then he went into the navy after the war or
17:35
Speaker 1: during the war, um, and he noticed what National City
17:39
Speaker 1: Lines was doing because he was right there, he'd been
17:42
Speaker 1: there while you know, they were buying up all these
17:45
Speaker 1: trolley services. So he figured out what was going on,
17:48
Speaker 1: and he wrote, um this letter with all this detailed
17:53
Speaker 1: evidence to every person he could think of had anything
17:58
Speaker 1: to do with federal, state, municipal elected officials and transportation.
18:03
Speaker 1: Anybody who had any kind of thing it got a
18:05
Speaker 1: letter from this guy across the country. He started this
18:07
Speaker 1: whole thing for people to start paying attention to this. Yeah. Really,
18:10
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, a lot of people say
18:12
Speaker 1: that he would have it may not have ever been
18:15
Speaker 1: noticed that he not brought it to everyone's attention, and
18:17
Speaker 1: he wasn't. Remember he was from a wealthy family. But
18:22
Speaker 1: um he he did such a thorough job that National
18:26
Speaker 1: City Lines was indicted by the federal government or the
18:30
Speaker 1: Justice Department for um anti trust for breaking anti trust laws. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: the Sherman Anti Trust Act, right, So okay, now we've
18:39
Speaker 1: got him by the short and curlies. Obviously National City
18:43
Speaker 1: Lines is going to go under. These people are going
18:46
Speaker 1: to all be taken out behind the wood shed and
18:48
Speaker 1: shot in the back of the head for trying to
18:50
Speaker 1: One of the charges was monopolized ground transportation in the
18:53
Speaker 1: United States, which is pretty huge very huge. They were
18:57
Speaker 1: actually acquitted of that charge, Yes they were, and they
19:00
Speaker 1: were found guilty of a lesser charge of guilty of
19:04
Speaker 1: monopolizing the sale of buses, which which, let me come on, Yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: they were found guilty. What happened, Chuck? They were fined
19:12
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. The whole thing, the National City Lines
19:15
Speaker 1: was just owned by GM. This firestone in standard oil
19:19
Speaker 1: was find five thousand dollars, which in seven even wasn't
19:22
Speaker 1: that much for corporate, not for all these corporations at all.
19:25
Speaker 1: The executives surely had to pay, right, Chuck, they did, dude,
19:28
Speaker 1: how much? One dollar? One dollar piece a symbolic fine
19:31
Speaker 1: of one dollar, and from an outsider looking in, you
19:36
Speaker 1: would see this lesser charge quote unquote, it's pretty much
19:39
Speaker 1: the charge, and they just I don't know how they
19:42
Speaker 1: got around it. I don't know if there was some
19:44
Speaker 1: nefarious bribes or anything like that. I know so that
19:47
Speaker 1: some conspiracy folks think so, but it's still hasn't been
19:51
Speaker 1: found out. Really, So the the fact that that case was,
19:55
Speaker 1: you know, tried and convicted in ninety seven, it's still
20:00
Speaker 1: it didn't catch the public eye all that much. It
20:02
Speaker 1: was actually a district attorney or federal attorney I think
20:07
Speaker 1: named Bradford Snell, who in nineteen seventy four testified before
20:11
Speaker 1: the Senate and really drummed up public ire about this occurrence.
20:16
Speaker 1: That it happened, uh, you know, a couple of decades before,
20:19
Speaker 1: so that it wasn't really considered a scandal or a
20:22
Speaker 1: huge nefariest plot until Bradford Snell came about, right, and
20:27
Speaker 1: again still not everybody's on the same page about whether
20:30
Speaker 1: this was a nefariest plot. No one actually disputes that
20:34
Speaker 1: GM and in National City Lines were trying to sell
20:38
Speaker 1: busses across the country. But they're saying monopolized ground transportation
20:42
Speaker 1: prove it. Uh, you can't really prove motivation like that,
20:46
Speaker 1: or clearly the federal prosecutors couldn't. But as as one
20:50
Speaker 1: guy pointed out in a Mountain Express, which is a
20:53
Speaker 1: paper out of Asheville, and I read a cool article
20:56
Speaker 1: in there about this um, the result was still the
20:59
Speaker 1: same for the trolley car. So whether that was the
21:02
Speaker 1: intent or not, that was still the result. And I
21:06
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons why this became such a
21:10
Speaker 1: point of or source of irritation among the public when
21:14
Speaker 1: Snell came out because that was nineteen seventy four, which
21:17
Speaker 1: was kind of right in the middle of the energy crisis,
21:20
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Well, that was part of it, but also
21:21
Speaker 1: it was around the birth of the the environmental protection
21:24
Speaker 1: movement we have like the Nasson e p A. And
21:28
Speaker 1: people are starting to think about that kind of thing. Yeah,
21:31
Speaker 1: and I think also faith in corporations that had been
21:34
Speaker 1: lost time and time again. People were kind of getting
21:37
Speaker 1: fed up with it. Right, Yeah, it's a good point. So, Chuck,
21:39
Speaker 1: we were talking about public transportation and cars being in
21:44
Speaker 1: a horse race, uh, to see who was going to
21:47
Speaker 1: serve or which was going to serve the United States. Right,
21:50
Speaker 1: there's also another sub race going on between what exactly
21:54
Speaker 1: would fuel those cars. Yeah, oil or gasoline or ethanol? Right.
21:59
Speaker 1: Henry Ford design in the Model T to run on
22:01
Speaker 1: either one, which is pretty interesting to think back, this
22:04
Speaker 1: country could have gone in a whole different direction. Man,
22:06
Speaker 1: it totally could have. Ford was actually a huge proponent
22:09
Speaker 1: of ethanol. He called it the fuel of the future. Uh,
22:13
Speaker 1: and it was, which was kind of weird because it
22:15
Speaker 1: had been around for several decades already. It used to
22:18
Speaker 1: power all sorts of equipment I think Ford also said that, um,
22:23
Speaker 1: one one year's yield of an acre of potatoes can
22:28
Speaker 1: be used to fuel the machinery to cultivate that acre
22:33
Speaker 1: for the next century. But we went with gas. We
22:35
Speaker 1: did go with gas. And do you know why, I'm
22:38
Speaker 1: not sure. I know that gas was just kind of
22:40
Speaker 1: a dirty byproduct at the time of oil crew to
22:43
Speaker 1: oil production. Yeah, they were looking for kerosene because they
22:47
Speaker 1: wanted kerosene to light things. Um, and no one really
22:51
Speaker 1: had any use for gas right right at the time.
22:53
Speaker 1: But once some oil fields opened up. You ever heard
22:57
Speaker 1: of a little movie called There Will Be Blood. Once
22:59
Speaker 1: some oil fields opened up in Texas around that time, Uh,
23:04
Speaker 1: oil suddenly became cheaper, Gas became cheaper, advances in the
23:08
Speaker 1: refining process became cheaper, and ethanol was more expensive. It
23:13
Speaker 1: was as simple as that. And Daniel day Lewis once
23:16
Speaker 1: again drinks our milkshake, yes, which we've mentioned before. I
23:20
Speaker 1: will eat your a long time ago, so chuck the
23:25
Speaker 1: I guess with the National city Line scandal going on,
23:30
Speaker 1: there was one real last nail in the coffin that
23:35
Speaker 1: came from a president, right. Yeah, that was you know,
23:39
Speaker 1: the cars weren't in full swing. People were digging it
23:42
Speaker 1: and what we needed now was major interstates to connect
23:45
Speaker 1: everyone together. And in President Dwight Eisenhower, he signed the
23:50
Speaker 1: Interstate Highway Act, which created about forty two miles of
23:54
Speaker 1: highway from coast to coast and the rest is history,
23:58
Speaker 1: literally the history. UM also that that one act really
24:03
Speaker 1: changed the American economy a lot too. Either way we
24:06
Speaker 1: spend our money, not just that, I mean think about um,
24:09
Speaker 1: fast food is one sure roadside attractions through food billboards.
24:15
Speaker 1: Johnald talking about billboards in the article, which I thought
24:17
Speaker 1: was pretty uh pretty cool. Yeah, I came across the
24:20
Speaker 1: study by these two guys named the Shapiro and Hassett,
24:23
Speaker 1: and they they reckon. I guess you could put it
24:26
Speaker 1: that every year cars in the highway system, just automobile
24:31
Speaker 1: use generates three and fourteen points seven billion dollars for
24:35
Speaker 1: businesses in the United States. That's direct. Like you've drive
24:39
Speaker 1: up to a McDonald's, um, you drive to you know,
24:44
Speaker 1: the mall. This is the fact that automobiles exist generates
24:48
Speaker 1: that you know what. You know what else happened to
24:50
Speaker 1: help this along? They started, Uh, new zoning laws were
24:54
Speaker 1: created and when businesses were built and for the first
24:57
Speaker 1: time parking spaces were required, and uh, you know a
25:02
Speaker 1: certain amount of parking spaces per business which still exist today.
25:05
Speaker 1: And what that what happened was they some cities like
25:08
Speaker 1: abandoned sidewalks altogether at this point, and they pushed businesses
25:12
Speaker 1: back further from the road in favor of parking lots, obviously,
25:16
Speaker 1: and uh, places that were pretty easily accessible by foot
25:20
Speaker 1: or by whatever, you know, bicycle, all of a sudden
25:23
Speaker 1: they were a little further away and they weren't as
25:24
Speaker 1: accessible and the the only way he'd get there it was
25:26
Speaker 1: by your car. So thanks a lot for that too. Yeah,
25:29
Speaker 1: it looks like, uh, I don't know public transit does
25:33
Speaker 1: it have a choice chance. Uh, Well, it's making a
25:36
Speaker 1: comeback now, obviously because gas prices are so so high
25:39
Speaker 1: now and the car car production has reached I think
25:43
Speaker 1: a tenure low last year, John said, dropped eight percent
25:48
Speaker 1: last year, but that was because gas was five bucks
25:50
Speaker 1: a gallon. And everybody you remember Martyr Ridership went up
25:53
Speaker 1: through the roof that like double or tripled, and then
25:56
Speaker 1: gas goes back down. Everybody's like, what the heck is Marta? Yeah,
25:59
Speaker 1: but I think people are starting to realize a little
26:01
Speaker 1: more a couple with the environmental impact than public transports
26:04
Speaker 1: coming back a little bit, but it'll it'll never overtake car.
26:07
Speaker 1: Consider this the the Cash for Clunkers program right in
26:11
Speaker 1: and of itself, supports automobiles. The recently defunct as of today.
26:16
Speaker 1: I think, actually, did they go through all three billion
26:19
Speaker 1: dollars already? I don't know. It was hugely successful. I
26:22
Speaker 1: know they sold the an estimated quarter of a million
26:25
Speaker 1: cars with just the first one billion dollars. That's a
26:28
Speaker 1: lot of cars. And I mean, yeah, you say four
26:32
Speaker 1: four miles per gallon? I think was the requisite? Was it? Yeah? Weird?
26:36
Speaker 1: But yeah, So the American obsession with cars continues, and
26:40
Speaker 1: answer this question, why are we so dependent on it?
26:44
Speaker 1: How did it become the dominant form of transportation? Because
26:47
Speaker 1: it was cheaper at the right time and that's what
26:51
Speaker 1: consumers want. So if you want to know more about this,
26:54
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of cool links on the l on
26:56
Speaker 1: my page on this article. Type in automobile dominant form
27:00
Speaker 1: of transportation in a handy search bar at how stuff
27:02
Speaker 1: works dot com. And Chuck, let's plug real quick too.
27:06
Speaker 1: What are we plugging? This time's plug? The blogs in
27:08
Speaker 1: the webcast. Josh and I have a shared blog called
27:12
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know. You can access it on the
27:15
Speaker 1: right side of the home page or website. Yes, and
27:18
Speaker 1: we write about interesting things and newsy items and people
27:21
Speaker 1: getting a little scrappy debates. It's good. It's what we
27:23
Speaker 1: do then. Yeah, and social media, my friend. Yeah. And
27:26
Speaker 1: the Friday blog recap is getting a lot of traffic now. People,
27:29
Speaker 1: we welcome you. If you want to say something about
27:31
Speaker 1: the show to to log on on Friday, it's in
27:34
Speaker 1: Uh tell us what you think? Yeah. Uh. And the
27:37
Speaker 1: webcast is live at one pm Eastern Time every Wednesday. Video. Yeah,
27:42
Speaker 1: you can find that on your blog post at that day.
27:45
Speaker 1: It's also on new stream and Facebook. Right, So there's
27:49
Speaker 1: the plugging. Plugging is over, which means it's time for
27:52
Speaker 1: listener mail. Listener mail, Josh, I'm just gonna call this uh.
27:58
Speaker 1: We shall use all powers for good. We have a
28:02
Speaker 1: regular kind of a email buddy, Christopher that writes in
28:05
Speaker 1: a lot and he's a really cool guy. And he
28:07
Speaker 1: wrote in and asked us to give a little shout
28:09
Speaker 1: out to blood platelet donation. He is a He and
28:13
Speaker 1: his family have been donating platelets for years and he
28:16
Speaker 1: says beginning at the end of August, it's a very
28:18
Speaker 1: critical time when blood and platelets are needed the most.
28:22
Speaker 1: And people know a lot about blood donations and how
28:24
Speaker 1: important that is, but few people know about platelet donation
28:27
Speaker 1: and other forms of donation that the Red Cross and
28:29
Speaker 1: State Blood Services take and what they're used for. Platelets,
28:33
Speaker 1: for example, are used for chemotherapy and leukemia patients. These
28:37
Speaker 1: treatments destroyed platelets, which are essential for the clouding of blood,
28:40
Speaker 1: which is very big deal, and patients frequently require platelet
28:45
Speaker 1: transfusions to allow their blood to clot if they get injured.
28:48
Speaker 1: Platelets are needed all the time, especially with the increase
28:50
Speaker 1: of cancer and leukemia cases in recent years. Blood Services
28:54
Speaker 1: also accepts red blood cells and plasma to help other
28:58
Speaker 1: patients and people we need. So his family has a
29:01
Speaker 1: freakishly high platelet count and when they donate one single
29:05
Speaker 1: donation goes to help three or four people in need. Cool,
29:07
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and most people single donation goes to help
29:11
Speaker 1: at least two patients. So he said, it takes a
29:14
Speaker 1: little longer, about an hour and forty five minutes, which
29:16
Speaker 1: is one reason why they don't get as many donations.
29:19
Speaker 1: And uh, that's just the process though, and they really
29:21
Speaker 1: need it. So we just want to encourage folks to
29:24
Speaker 1: uh he actually wanted just the podcast about it. So
29:26
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do that one day. But go give blood
29:29
Speaker 1: platelets people. Did you know that my girlfriend's blood saves infants? Really?
29:34
Speaker 1: She lacks the type of her pies that most people
29:37
Speaker 1: get by age five. Um so, but you're not supposed
29:41
Speaker 1: to get it before age five. Very few people, um
29:45
Speaker 1: are without this type of herpes. She's one of them.
29:48
Speaker 1: So her blood is used directly to save infants. How
29:50
Speaker 1: crazy is that? Did you know that a gaze from
29:52
Speaker 1: my wife saves baby puppies all from all over the
29:57
Speaker 1: world that she looks upon them. That's very cool. She
30:00
Speaker 1: should exercise, should beat that UNI? Okay, um yeah, you me,
30:04
Speaker 1: I want to see a UNI and Emily saved down right,
30:07
Speaker 1: let's do that. So donate blood platelets and blood and
30:11
Speaker 1: plasma and import and Josh and and puppies and Josh
30:14
Speaker 1: and are gonna go do that today? All right? If
30:15
Speaker 1: you have an email about what you can save, send
30:18
Speaker 1: it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com
30:27
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
30:30
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works,
30:34
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30:36
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