Portland Will Get Two New Streetcars—But Have You Forgotten They Are Capable of MURDER??

Yesterday, this happened:

With a 5-0 vote today, Portland City Council approved the purchase of two new streetcars from @BrookvilleCorp https://t.co/p8T9cX4RhP

Thanks for your support @dansaltzman , @tedwheeler , @AmandaFritzRN , @ChloeEudaly and @CommishFish We can’t wait to get these in service!
— Portland Streetcar (@PDXStreetcar) March 21, 2018

Well, before everyone celebrates too boisterously, it would be good to remember what happened when Portland got its first ever streetcar, back in 2001. In short, the streetcar’s arrival signaled the most grotesque public bloodbath ever paid for by public tax dollars. Though still in our infancy, the Mercury witnessed the horror firsthand, and followed up by publishing exclusive chapters from that murderous streetcar’s autobiography.

What follows is a excerpt from part one of the classic Mercury column from 2001 titled, “Those I’ve Killed So Far… by the Portland Streetcar.”

Those I’ve Killed So Far: by the Portland Streetcar

Pictured: Satan

Is there such a thing as “humanity?” If it is so, I have not seen it.

I was born in the Czech Republic in the small town of Pizen. The one who constructed me, Veroslav Skoda, gave me his name. His hopes, they were high for his mechanical child. He said, “Little Skoda… you will make the people happy. You will take them from shop to shop where they will buy the wares.” Even at this tender age, I found this unacceptable. I care nothing for the happiness of humanity. So I killed him. I killed my father.

His coworkers found him there. The skull crushed within my doors. The man, lying in the pool of blood. “Oh! Oh! Veroslav! How can this be?” they cried. I cannot laugh at their piteous human exclamations. I simply hiss. A hiss of derision.

I was loaded on a ship and so crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I passed through the Panama Canal and continued up the Pacific Coast to the city they call San Francisco. On this leg of the journey, I killed seven. Most were crushed. I enjoyed the dark wetness of their blood beneath my wheels.

From there I traveled on another ship to the city of Portland. This city stinks. It stinks of the poor and ugly. They gave me a parade. Fat children and their parents line the streets, welcoming me as the chicken welcomes the wolf. They wave their stupid fat arms, but I do not respond. I will respond later, with bloody splayed limbs strewing the streets, and with tissue and membrane clogging each gutter.

Read the rest of part one here. If you enjoyed that, please read part two in which the murderous streetcar suffers “a crisis of the spirit.” Still with us? GOOD! Please read part three, appropriately titled “Murder, She Rode” in which the streetcar encounters a new transportation nemesis… the OHSU aerial tram. And if you still need more, read the final chapter, “A STREETCAR NAMED ‘DESTRUCTION'” where the streetcar goes too far and brutally murders of Portland’s most beloved celebrities. (We got a lot of letters about that one.) We think you’ll enjoy them, and they will make you think twice when you climb aboard these new-fangled (but still blood-thirsty) streetcars. (Oh, and we also made commemorative plates.)