User talk:Springee/streetcar conspiracy

Purpose

This sandbox article is being used to develop the General Motors streetcar conspiracy as per Talk:General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy#Proposed_rewrite_for_balance_and_readability in order to:

Explain what actually happened (to the extent that we know given that the parties went to considerable lengths to hide what they were doing)
Describe how this has been viewed by the public over various time periods (including all the exaggeration and denials)
State clearly that streetcars were replaced around the world, for better of worse, due to wider policies, including planning, taxation and social policies as well as because of poor labour relations and the inherent inflexibility of streetcar services. In my view the key un-costed externalities of motoring included state funded roads available for use without charge (compared to streetcars where the track was paid for by investors), few or no costs applied to motorists for the many associated externalities (traffic congestion, air pollution, cost of provision of parking etc) etc seem to be important.
Briefly touch on the ways that policies have been changing recently to support urban public transport in US cities more effectively over recent decades. Notably with more investment in PT, taxation changes allowing motoring taxes to be used for support public transport and at least consideration of making charges for congestion.

-- PeterEastern (talk) 07:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some Revisions

I am going to attempt to do some editing and have taken a reductionist rather than an expansionist view on what this article needs. In my evaluation of this article it needs to be trimmed down and made lean before any more information is added. To that effect I have removed the section regarding Randall O'Toole due to its irrelevance to the current article. I also removed sections of the Introduction for failing to summarize the article and plan to work around what is already in the article for the new introduction. Additionally I have removed the "Myth's and Mysteries" section for closely bordering to original research and possible original synthesis. As well that heading read to me more like a History Channel show than an actual encyclopedia article Shadowyguy (talk) 09:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for engaging with this. Reducing the length of the lead does seem to sensible. I am not convinced however that the article is improved by removing the 'Myth's and Mysteries' section which exists primarily to provide a clear rebuttal of many commonly held urban myths surrounding the subject, all of which are referenced along with the rebuttal. Also is it not appropriate to maintain a reference to Cato's views? I think it is an interesting and notable view that transit declined naturally to be replaced by a better system. In particular their article "The Great Streetcar Conspiracy - Cato Institute" which includes the phrase "Snell invented the myth of the Great GeneralMotors Streetcar Conspiracy" is very prominent on the web. Finally, on a personal note, can you provide some information about yourself and your interests on your user page. PeterEastern (talk) 17:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any energy to continue with this proposed rewrite? If not then possibly we should close it and make a note to that effect in the relevant section of the main talk page. My recommendation is that we do close it and then reduce the length of the lead in the main article as I suggest above. PeterEastern (talk) 02:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]