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Hidden History Of transportation In Los Angeles By Charles P. Hobbs
Hidden History Of transportation In Los Angeles By Charles P. Hobbs
238 Pages Published 2014 Softcover
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Foot that Moves the Pedal: Horace M. Dobbins's California Cycleway
2. "It'll Put the Pacific Electric Railroad in a Museum!": Joseph W. Fawkes's Aerial Swallow
3. From Nickel-Seekers to Smart Shuttles:
The Jitney in Southern California
4. "A Millionaire Twice": O.R. Fuller's Motor Transit
5. The Way to Terminal Island: The San Pedro Harbor Ferry and the Vincent Thomas Bridge
6. Brunner, Rindge, Hoyme and Hendler:
Transportation Pioneers of the Malibu
7. Buses Run in This Family: The Carsons
8. The School Bus Scandal: The Landiers
9. Helicopters Over Traffic: Clarence Belinn's
Los Angeles Airways
10. "Watts Will Have Its Bus Party!":
Dr. Thomas W. Matthew's Blue and White Bus
11. Groovy Buses to the Beach: The Kadletz Brothers and the Pink Bus Line
12. Diamonds Are Forever: Adriana Gianturco and the Diamond Lane
13. The Future Is an Abandoned Tunnel: The Los Angeles Downtown People Mover
14. Moving Toward Metrolink:
The Oxnard-Los Angeles CalTrain
13. Jump in the Buspool: Mac Barnes's Ground Link
16. A Freeway Runs through It: Driving on the
Los Angeles River
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
T ike countless small springs feeding a mighty river, the inspiration for (Hidden History of Transportation in Los Angeles developed from many small events.
It came partly from growing up in Los Angeles, traveling via the freeways, learning to read maps and listening to radio traffic reports. It also came from my first experience with public transit in the summer of 1984. I commuted three times a week between La Verne and the University of California-Irvine using public transit. The trip, which took about five hours each way, required the use of three Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD) buses to travel from La Verne to the Orange County line. At Brea, I would transfer to the Orange County Transit District (OCTD) buses to travel farther south to Irvine, with a connection in Santa Ana. Somehow, that onerous and tiring commute led to my lifelong fascination with public transportation.
Later that summer, I rode the bus to downtown Los Angeles. There I noticed the different transit agencies serving the central city-buses of all colors: Santa Monica's "Big Blue Bus," the red-and-white buses of Torrance Transit and Gardena's green-and-yellow buses. Why so many cliffearent agencies? Wouldn't it be better to have a single transit agency go everywhere?
By 1987, I had learned that many former independent bus companies had been absorbed into RTD. There were also plans to break apart RTD into several new transit agencies. Intrigued, I sent a letter to RTD inquiring about both the historic bus companies and the future of the agency. A week later, I received a two-part letter.
The first part was a list of former bus companies with names such as "Asbury Rapid Transit," "Blue and White Bus Lines of Watts" and "Pasadena City Lines." These companies became unprofitable in the 1960s and '70s due to increasing labor costs, the proliferation of personal automobiles and other factors. RTD (or its predecessor, Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority), in the interest of providing continued service, acquired the bus Companies and integrated their routes into its network.
The second part was a list of RTD bus routes to be taken over by either the City or the County of Los Angeles. These were express and suburban local routes that had become costly for RTD to operate, so the agency was planning to cancel them. The City of Los Angeles was planning to operate ten of these routes under contract to a private bus company. The county also planned to operate six other former RTD routes, again using a private operator under contract.
The words of that letter spoke of the past and future of Southern California public transportation. RTD, which had swallowed whole several smaller bus companies, was now giving routes to several new transit agencies.
In 1987, I also chose a graduate program. Although I had a strong interest in urban planning, I decided to go into library science. As part of a class project, I discovered the RTD Library, which specialized in providing research services to the planning department at the transit agency. During the summer of 1989, I had an internship at the library, working with librarian Dorothy Gray. My project was to organize the library's collection of archival documents; one of my tasks included writing a short history of each bus company acquired by RTD. (Dorothy Gray passed away in late 2001, and the library has been named the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library in her honor.)
In 1991, I joined the Southern California Transit Advocates, an all-volunteer, grass-roots group supporting improved public transportation. This group was (rightfully) more concerned with current events than with history, so I concentrated my efforts on the deeds and misdeeds of transit agencies and local governments, while keeping my interest in transit history as a hobby.
During long Metrolink commutes in 2006, I would read biographies of all sorts of people ranging from rock musicians to business tycoons. I marveled at the breadth of information the authors found out about their subjects. For example, I did not know the Wilson brothers of the Beach Boys had Swedish ancestry. I thought, "Could I ever write something like this?"
The final impetus for writing this book came in early 2007, as I was experimenting with the Proquest Historical Los Angeles Times database at the Los Angeles Public Library. Remembering some of the names of the historical bus operators, I typed in "Motor Transit" and clicked the "Search" button. Proquest returned an amazing number of articles, from which I learned not only about the Motor Transit bus system itself but also about the rich and full life of its founder, O.R. Fuller.
I tried another search on "Blue and White Bus Lines." This search brought up all sorts of information on the Watts-based bus line and Dr. Thomas W. Matthew, the first African American neurosurgeon in the United States. Along with the Watts bus lines, Dr. Matthew had built an empire of organizations, including a bus system in New York, a hospital, apartment buildings and small
businessesall intended to provide black citizens and other marginalized
groups a path to self-betterment without resorting to welfare.
A search on "Pink Bus Lines" led to information on Mike Kadletz, who at the young age of eighteen formed a bus company in transit-sparse Orange County to take teenagers to the beach as an alternative to hitchhiking.
I recalled and searched for more stories from Southern California's unique transportation history. Horace Dobbins and his elevated bikeway in Pasadena. Joseph Fawkes's bizarre propeller-powered monorail. The unpopular "Diamond Lane" on the Santa Monica Freeway. A futuristic but financially troubled "people mover" for downtown Los Angeles. A proposal to use the concrete-lined bed of the Los Angeles River as a freeway. Mac Barnes, who stretched the definition of "carpool" by carrying his passengers in a full-size, forty-seven-passenger bus. All seemed to be part of a greater story.
By mid-March 2007, I knew there had to be enough material for a book. Why not chronicle all of these interesting but somewhat forgotten stories in one volume for posterity?
Hidden History of Transportation in Los Angeles brings to life these stories of early transportation operators and events, from the 1900s to the present. Much more than a fact-filled history, it will answer questions like: Who were the people behind these transportation systems? Where did they come from? What motivated them to provide transportation services? And finally, what mark did they leave behind on Southern California's current transportation system?
It is my hope that my book will not only educate and entertain its readers but also inspire the next Fuller, Matthew, Kadletz or Barnes to make their mark on transportation in Southern California.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles P Hobbs's interest in public transportation began in 1984. While commuting on the bus, he started thinking about how public transportation could be improved. In 1989, he organized the archives of the Southern California Rapid Transit District Library (now known as the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation library) as a student at UCLAs Graduate School of Library and Information Science. While doing so, he gained an interest in the history of public transportation in Southern California.
In 1990, he joined the Southern California Transit Advocates (socata. net) and served as the group's newsletter editor between 1992 and 2005. In 2009, he started the "More than Red Cars" blog (morethanredcars.com), dedicated to the transportation history of Southern California.
He is a systems librarian at El Camino College Compton Center and an adjunct reference librarian at Irvine Valley College. A lifetime resident of Southern California, he currently resides in Fontana.
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