History of Los Angeles Public Transportation
1874: The Spring and 6th Street Railroad began to serve the down town Los Angeles area and thus, a single track car line driven by horses was the beginning of public transit in Los Angeles (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1875: The Main Street and Agricultural Railroad began operation as the first suburban line in Los Angeles (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1883: The City Railroad Company was the first line that was exclusively for public transit (other lines were to promote real estate) (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1887: The Los Angeles Cable Railway was the largest transit project in the city, and went from Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles to Westlake Park and Grand Avenue. This later became the Pacific Railway Company, and was the last city line to convert to electric rails (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1895-1945: The Los Angeles Railway, or the Yellow Cars of Los Angeles, was the local streetcar system that went through the center of city streets and connected downtown to neighborhoods within a six-mile radius (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1901: Angeles Flight Railway was built to allow Bunker Hill residents public access up the steep slope. The two cars are propelled by cable, and the railway was in operation for over 60 years. In 1969 it was temporarily shut down, and it reopened in 1996 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1911: The “Great Merger” took place when eight companies merged into the Pacific Electric Railway Company. This interurban system competed with steam railroad lines for freight and passengers (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1925: The Los Angeles Pacific Electric Subway opened, and ran under Fourth and Hill Street (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1933: Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway included bus passenger services, but the automobile led to an increased decline in passengers (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1940: General Motors (GM) purchased $100 million of the Pacific Electric system (Davis & Fabro, 2012).
1944: American City Lines (owned by GM) purchased the Los Angeles Railway and tore down transmission lines; electric transit cars and tracks were replaced with buses. The creation of freeways displaced residents and brought pollution and loss of quality of life to Los Angeles (Davis & Fabro, 2012).
1945-1958: Los Angeles Transit Lines were purchased from the Los Angeles Railway and was renamed. The owners wanted to substitute buses on most street car lines (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1953-1958: In 1953, Pacific Electric sold its passenger rail cars and buses to the Metropolitan Coach Lines bus company. The owner promised to improve bus service and lessen rail use (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1951-1964: The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority was formed by the State of California in 1951 as a transit planning agency. The group was to make policies for a publicly owned mass rapid transit system to replace the disorganized infrastructure of privately owned systems (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1957: The legislature gave LACMT authority to purchase and operate privately owned bus lines (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
The LAMTA Act of 1957 stated:
It is hereby declared to be the policy of the State of California to develop mass rapid transit systems in the various metropolitan areas within the State for the benefit of the people. A necessity exists within Los Angeles County for such a system. Because of the numerous separate municipal corporations and unincorporated populated areas in the metropolitan area, only a specially created authority can operate effectively. Because of the unique problem presented in Los Angeles County and the facts and circumstances related to the establishment of a mass rapid transit system therein, the adoption of a special act and the creation of a special authority is required.
-Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, "Los Angeles Transit History" (2010)
1964-1993: Southern California Rapid Transit District was created, and superseded LAMTA; it was created to improve the bus system and design and build a transit system in Los Angeles. In 1964, the State Legislature realized that LAMTA had limited authority to solve Southern California's transit issues, and would be unable to establish a comprehensive mass rapid transit system. It could not levy taxes and it did not have political influence. Furthermore, it did not have enough revenue to start such a large scale project. SCRTD was successful in getting federal funding for the Metro Rail subway project (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1976-1993: The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission was created to oversee public transit and highway policy in LA county. LACTC created the Metro Blue Line, Metro Green Line, and Metro Red Line (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1980: Proposition A was approved, meant to satisfy different geopolitical interests, and led to an ambitious rail program, which included urban rail lines coming from the center of Los Angeles, as well as lines connecting the central business district with the suburbs (Grengs, 2002).
1989: The Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) was formed by community organizations to keep watch over the rail program, and was founded by activist Eric Mann. The organization aimed to look at transit issues from a social justice stance, and formed the Transportation Policy group in 1991 to campaign for interests of low income bus riders. This group accused MTA of creating a “separate and unequal” transit system that took resources from buses to build rail lines, harming bus riders (Grengs, 2002). 60 percent of MTA ridership earned less than $15,000 per year, and minorities made up 80 percent of transit riders. 94 percent of MTA customers were bus riders, but the MTA spent 70 percent of budget on 6 percent of ridership that were rail passengers (Grengs, 2002).
1990: The Blue Line opened, running from the CBD to Long Beach, and later to Pasadena (Grengs, 2002).
1991: Congress passed Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which gave metropolitan regions more flexibility on how they spend money, and also created more accountability at the local level (Grengs, 2002).
1992: Metrolink was created (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010).
1993: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was created by merging the agency that operated bus system with an agency that controlled transit funding from Proposition A. There were many problems with the system, in addition to debt. Such issues included embarrassing mistakes, such as construction accidents like the “Hollywood Sinkhole,” where parts of Hollywood Boulevard collapsed, despite warnings of a likely collapse. The MTA was also accused of corruption, leading to an arrest by the FBI of a top administrator for fraud, and was further accused of disguising conflicts of interest. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Agency was made responsible for operating the Metro Bus fleet and Rapid Bus lines, as well as the Metro Blue, Red, Green and Gold lines (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2010). The Red Line crossed the Blue Line and included a downtown subway section (Grengs, 2002).
1994: The LCSC formed the Bus Riders Union (BRU), a community organization of bus riders in Los Angeles that protested the local transit authority's plans to proceed with expensive rail rapid transit to the suburbs, instead of improving inner city bus services. MTA proposed to raise bus fair and eliminate monthly bus passes used by poor bus riders, cut service for bus riders, and spend $123 million on the rail program. A lawsuit in 1994 was first that successfully challenged transit agency actions, and the result bound the agency to improve the inner city bus service. The lawsuit claimed that the MTA discriminated against minorities, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and intentionally discriminated against minority bus riders, violating the 14th amendment. Results of this included reduced fare passes, discounts on peak fares, a commitment to increase buses, the creation of a joint group of MTA representatives and bus riders, and a court appointed mediator (Grengs, 2002).
1995: The Green Line opened, connecting to the L.A. International Airport. Metrolink, a commuter rail system, was also extended to five counties beyond the L.A. county boundary. This ambitious program, as well as other costs, led to a debt of $7 billion by the transit agency (Grengs, 2002).
-Check out an interactive timeline from the Metro Transportation Library and Archive
-Check out an interactive family tree from Metro Transportation Library and Archive
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