Taken For A Ride - Transit Film

On Wednesday, August 27 at 7:00, the Capital Group Sierra Club will present Taken For A Ride, a 52 minute film by Jim Klein and Martha Olson dealing with “the little known story of an auto and oil industry campaign to buy and dismantle transit.“
Taken For A Ride is the first in a planned series of transit-focused films. After the film, the Capital Group Sierra Club will open a discussion with those in attendance in an effort to raise public awareness and discuss the group’s efforts to improve local transit options.

Members of 1304 Bikes will be meeting at the church on the corner of Glenwood and Whitaker Mill in Five Points at 6:00 to gather and bike to the movie. Anyone is welcome to cycle along.

• B 08/25 10:22 PM

  Sounds like a bunch of people getting together to discuss conspiracy theories about the fuel companies.

• ChiefJoJo 08/26 12:04 AM

  ^ Maybe you should check it out.  You might learn something.

• B 08/26 11:00 AM

  Maybe your missing the big picture. The Sierra Club hasn’t done anything since the 60’s. Now they just collect membership fees and hand out stickers. How much do they provide to research and science?

• Ken Metzger 08/26 11:25 AM

  B, research and science is not the mission of the Sierra Club.  Most of their money goes to lobbying efforts and education.  This film would fall into the education category, but is not even made by the Sierra Club (it is funded by the Independent Television Service).  It is also far from a conspiracy theory, as the auto industry (mostly GM, Firestone, Standard Oil) did acquire almost all of the street cars and street car lines and replaced them with buses.  The subject would be better classified as history.  Even little old Raleigh used to have streetcar lines.

• Kermit 08/26 11:58 AM

  Buses aren’t transit?

• Ken Metzger 08/26 12:04 PM

  Kermit, right you are.  I was trying to express that the dismantling of the street car system is not much of a “theory”.  I, personally, have not seen the film, so I do not know how it treats the affect of buses in comparison to street cars.

• HelenTart 08/26 02:04 PM

  Since I got notices about this event from 4 other organizations, obviously this is not just a Sierra Club event. Actually the Capital Group Sierra Club’s ability to partner with other groups has made it one of the most effective organizations in the Area.

• go go girl 08/26 04:18 PM

  I believe one of the purposes behind the movie was to explore how America’s suburban development initially began with ‘transit’ based on urban rail (trolleys) and ended up being entirely based on cars and buses.

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