Going down

What does it feel like when major corporations face decline and decay as market forces or the march of time renders them obsolete? Tobacco companies, feeling the squeeze in the U.S. and Europe, have been scrambling to addict as many new smokers as possible in the developing world. With climate change and the recent economic whirlwind, U.S. car makers will perhaps also one day exist only as artifacts in museums.

I was surprised to discover this scurrilous advertisement which General Motors Canada ran in 2002 in Vancouver, attacking public transport in that city, and offering as the perfect alternative, what else, a car... several other ads included one that stated "wet dog smell."

In your own vehicle, negotiating bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, there is no danger of you reading a newspaper over someone's shoulder; no chance of happy accidents like seeing someone you went to school with and taking them out for a drink; nor will you catch the eye of some hot and sexy boy/girl. For that sort of dangerous gambling with one's well-being, you would need a public transport system.

Here in New York City, the current 'Great Depression II' which I have decided ought to be called 'short-term crisis in banking' has been used by the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (subways and buses, bridges and tunnels) to increase fares and cry bitter tears of how they have no money for nuthin'.

So strange after the subway system, nine times larger than any other in the U.S., has seen much-increased rider numbers in the last ten years. Yet now the city that never sleeps faces this horror, according to the NY Times: "extreme measures, like stopping nighttime subway service," cannot be ruled out.