Taken for a Ride: Difference between revisions

| image = Pacific-Electric-Red-Cars-Awaiting-Destruction.gifjpg

| released = {{Film date|1996}}

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'''''Taken for a Ride''''' is a [[documentary]] film by Martha Olson and Jim Klein about the [[General Motors streetcar conspiracy|Great American Streetcar Scandal]]. The 55-minute film was first broadcast on August 6, 1996 on the [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] television series ''[[POV (TV series)|POV]]''.

''Taken for a Ride'' begins with interviews on the inefficiencies and congestion on [[Transportation in Los Angeles|Los Angeles' highways.]] Next, the film displays a variety of archival footage on streetcar systems around Americathe United States, demonstratingasserting that streetcars[[streetcar]]s were a widespread and efficient means of transportation. The film continues into a description of the [[General Motors streetcar conspiracy]];, starting with a history of [[National City Lines]] and [[Pacific City Lines]], buildingand General Motors' investment in both companies. The film builds the argument that streetcar systems purchased by these companies were deliberately madesabotaged inefficientthrough service reductions and fare increases, then replaced with profitable, less convenient, bus systems. Next, the film describesmakes thea connection ofbetween this conspiracy withand the construction of the [[Interstate Highway System]] and the suburbanization of America in the face of the [[Highwayhighway revolts]] in the 1960s and 1970s. The film ends with footage of the reduction of [[Trolleybuses in Philadelphia|Philadelphia's trolleybus system]] at the time of filming.

Taken for a Ride has been well received by critics, with an 8.6/10 rating on IMDB. <ref>{{cite web|title=Taken for a Ride (1996)|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0236785/|accessdate=14 January 2015}}</ref> Academic Sara Sullivan gave the film a mixed rating in her 2010 review: "(''Taken for a Ride'') presents a compelling history of the streetcars and the battles over freeways in the 1970s," but that the film "feels incomplete, with certain aspects needing to be fleshed out and other links made."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sullivan|first1=Sara|title=Taken for a Ride (Review)|journal=Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies|date=2010|volume=40|issue=2|pages=142-144142–144|doi=10.1353/flm.2010.0001|s2cid=143505886|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/film_and_history/v040/40.2.sullivan.pdf|accessdate=14 January 2015}}</ref>

[[Category:1990s1996 documentary films]]

[[Category:IndependentAmerican independent films]]

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