HoustonWade.com

General Motors savior may be in it’s illegal aquisitions from 70 years ago. From the 1920s through the 1950s GM and Firestone bought up all the private commuter rail they could, including subways, cable cars, electric trollies, etc… So that they could crush it forcing people to buy cars to get around. The Supreme Court fined them botha whopping $5000 for violating antitrust laws and single handidly destroying the American metropolitan area. Today, much of that old infrastructure still exists, albeit in a dilapidated state, and GM still owns thousands of miles of rail easments in dozens of cities across America.

Obama put over $8 billion in the stimulus bill for commuter rail, why not give GM a few billion bucks to renovate and reopen the old subways and trollies? Los Angeles used to have one of the largest networks of subways and cummuter rail in the world before GM destroyed it, and most of the old tunnels still exist and only need some renovation to be functional again.

By doing this we can save GM and it’s vast capital infrastructure, help the environment by removing cars from the road and force one of the slowest-to-adapt manufacturing giants to finally diversify.

Chrysler and Gm want us to give them more money to straighten out thier finances. OK, it’s theirs, under one condition: They give us all the rail and trolly lines they bought up in the 40s and 50s. in return we give them tons of cash to renovate and reopen these integral rail systems.

Los Angeles had a huge subway system that rivaled New York in the first half of the 20th century, then GM and Firestone bought it up and tore it up. Let’s give them billions to put it back to work. Much of the concrete infratstructure is there and the easements are all owned by these few companies, we need rail desperately, and they need cash desperately. Let’s do this.

While we are at it: We need to create at least seven high-speed rail/maglev train lines in this country. Four North/South and at least two that are East/West.

The first North/South Line from Vancouver, BC to Cabo San Lucas, Baja that connects Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego together.

The Second that starts in Winnepeg, Manitoba that goes to St. Louis through Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Des Moines. There should be a fork on this line that starts in Milwaukee and travels through Chicago on its way to St. Louis. From there it is on to Memphis and then it skirts Southwest and travels through Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, on its way to Mexico where it connects with Jaurez and terminates in Mexico City.

The third North/South Line Begins in Timmins, Ontario and terminates in Mobile, AL connecting Toronto, Detroit, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinatti/Louisville, Nashville and Birmingham.

The forth, largest, most important, and final North/South line would begin in Montreal, Quebec and terminate in Miami, FL while connecting Boston, New York, Philedelphia, Baltimore, DC, Raliegh, Charlotte, Columbia, and Jacksonville.

The first East/West line would begin San Francisco and terminate in DC Connecting Reno/Tahoe, Salt Lake City, Denver, Witchita, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cincinatti/Louisville, and Lexington along the way.

The second of the East/West lines would begin in LA and terminate in Jacsonville, FL connecting Pheonix, Albuquerque, Dallas, New Orleans and Mobile on its way.

The argument can be made for a third line starting in Vancouver, Seattle or Portland and terminating in either Boston or NY as well.

The construction of these high speed rail lines would put millions to work and imporve the economy in ways never imagined in this nationa and North America as a whole.