To understand the red car conspiracy, one must understand the history of the red cars. They were the brainchild of Henry Huntington (via 99% Invisible). The nephew of a railroad magnate, Huntington used his enormous wealth to purchase the Los Angeles Railway and incorporate it with his new company, Pacific Electric. He began to build several subdivisions in the city and used the red cars to connect them to Downtown Los Angeles. In other words, the red car system was created to get people in and out of Huntington’s subdivisions; it was never meant to be a complex transit system.

According to Curbed Los Angeles, the streetcars had become unprofitable and were losing riders all the way back into the 1930s, long before they shut down. When gas was scarce during World War II, ridership increased. By the end of the war, however, the red car system was once again empty. When cars inevitably became popular, this slowed down red cars as they too had to obey the same traffic rules.

Per The Los Angeles Daily News, those returning from the war wanted more independence, which led to a car boom. Simply put, the red cars were inconvenient and they did not run along many of LA’s urban neighborhoods. They did not take into account the metropolis that Los Angeles would eventually become. Thus, buses and especially cars later became more suitable modes of transportation for Angelinos (via The Eastsider). In other words, the conspiracy is less of a conspiracy and more a case of bad urban planning.