Six Maps Showing 90 Years of LA's Alternate Transit History

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/six_maps_showing_90_years_of_las_alternate_transit_history.php

By Bianca Barragan, October 14, 2014

 

 Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan for the County of Los Angeles (1925) Kelker, De Leuw and Co. [All images via Metro's Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library]

 

 Now that Los Angeles's transit network is finally expanding in a big way (with extensions of the Expo Line to Santa Monica and the Gold Line to the Azusa, and the creation of Downtown's Regional Connector all moving along, plus loads of projects in the works), what better time to look back at more than 90 years of failed starts and broken transit dreams that Los Angeles has had in the past. Inspired by CityLab and KPCC's recent (and excellent) exploration of never-built transit networks, this collection of maps reveal some hopes that LA is only just now fulfilling, like a train all the way to the beach (in one version, it might've been a railcar with space for your surfboard). As LA continues to shed its car-dependent reputation and move toward a more multi-modal future, reality might start looking a little more like these dream maps.

• 
   
  According to Metro, this plan and the previous map (which showed proposed lines for LA 
  County) "recommended for immediate construction of 153 miles of subway, elevated rail, and street railways at a projected cost of $133,385,000. Strong opposition by the business community to planned sections of elevated rail, as well as voter reluctance to tax themselves to benefit the privately held Pacific Electric Railway and Los Angeles Railway effectively shelved the plan." [Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan for the City of Los Angeles (1925) Kelker, De Leuw and Co.]
   
• 
   
  Commissioned by the city in 1945, this plan was chucked due to "Rapid expansion of freeway construction, strong patron dissatisfaction with overcrowding, slow speeds and old equipment on Pacific Electric Railway and Los Angeles Railway, and voter apathy again shelved plans for a new mass transit system," says Metro. The red lines show where rail would run on "widened future freeways"; green represents rapid bus lines. [City of Los Angeles Recommended Program for Improvement of Transportation and Traffic Facilities in the Metropolitan Area (1945) De Leuw, Cather and Co.]
   
• 
   
  Metro says that this 1953 plan for a monorail included "51 miles overhead, 21.6 miles at grade, 2.3 miles in tunnel, 74.9 miles total at a cost of $529,700,000, that could eventually expand to 150 mile eight corridor system." This iteration extended from Panorama City to Long Beach. Peeved stakeholders along Wilshire (where plans called for an elevated monorail) are credited with the project's failure, though groundbreaking ceremonies were held in Downtown and Beverly Hills at one point in 1962, despite the fact that there wasn't any money to actually do any construction. (If this one ever gets built, Ray Bradbury and Rick Caruso would probably be over the moon.)
   
• 
   
  That's a pretty sharp-looking monorail...
   
• 
   
  Says Metro of this never-built plan, "The 1968 Final Proposed Transit Master Plan Concept was devised for ballot initiative. The initial 62-mile, four corridor system that could expand to 300 miles was projected to cost $2.5 billion during its 8.5-year construction period."
   
•  

"The 1976 Proposed Sunset Coast Rapid Transit Master Plan was yet another proposal for ballot initiative. It suggested a 281-mile system: 230 miles of heavy rail and 51 miles of light rail at a projected cost of $7.5 billion," says Metro. Some rail cars would have provided storage space for bikes and surfboards (!!!).

· Past Visions of L.A.'s Transportation Future [Metro]
· What would LA look like if 100 year-old transit dreams came true? [SCPR]
· What Old Transit Maps Can Teach Us About a City's Future [CityLab]
· The Long History of Wilshire Subway Regrets (and Success!) [Curbed LA]
· New Metro Rail Map is Very Real and Pretty Spectacular [Curbed LA]