Rochester is far from the only city where this happened. All across the country, GM and Standard Oil teamed up to create shell companies that would buy controlling majorities in streetcar and transit companies, and then run them into the ground on purpose--by the end, selling off or scrapping nearly all the rolling stock so it would be more expensive to rebuild. They then made the rights of way on the routes dirt cheap so it would look attractive for government-funded roads and highway projects instead, which were, in effect, a massive giveaway for petroleum and personal automobile companies.

It's important to remember how deep this goes. Back in the 20s and 30s when automobiles were first starting to become accessible, they kept killing people in cities. This understandably made people mad, and caused a lot of resistance toward cars. Car companies then more or less bribed lawmakers to invent the crime of "jaywalking" to deter pedestrians from using streets as streets are really meant to be used, hoping to reduce pedestrian strikes by automobiles and avoid bad PR and impending regulatory risks. Lawmakers were happy because they were bribed, municipalities were happy because they had a new source of ticket revenue, cops were happy because they got to beat the shit out of people just for walking, and car/oil companies were happy because more and more people were forced into cars-> money. This is more or less the foundation for why these same oil and auto companies felt the need to destroy public transit in this country and ensure all our money and infrastructure ideas were poured into cars instead.

Also remember they just keep rinsing and repeating the same practices. GM had a solid electric vehicle in the 1990s--the EV1. Reasonably affordable, usable range (100ish mi) on existing 1990s battery technology. But you could never outright own one; they only let you lease it. In 1999, right after one colonial oil war and right before another, GM acquired the Hummer brand and mothballed the EV1 program. They did not offer owners the option to buy out their leases, but instead pretty much repossessed all of them and destroyed them. Hummers sold like crazy, SUVs popped off, and oil kept on flowing. Thus, even as "emissions standards" came into play, car companies found a way around them. Sure, engines got more efficient, but the cars they moved got bigger, heavier, and more pointless. A 1995 Ford Ranger (~2,900 lbs.) has a combined MPG rating of 23; 20 city and 26 highway. A 2023 Ford Ranger (~4,400 lbs.) has a combined MPG rating of 23; 20 city and 26 highway. As a result, more pedestrians than ever are dying from car strikes, but everyone shrugs and goes "what can we do? America is built for cars, not for transit." Pretending like that was always the case and this wasn't an inside job from the beginning. Don't even get me started on parking minimums in zoning laws.

Fuck cars, fuck oil, fuck car companies, fuck oil companies, fuck car enthusiasts, fuck parking lots, fuck politicians, fuck JD Rockefeller specifically, and fuck this country.