Hey all, Am I the only one that has noticed the PE (Pacific Electric) is making a come back in the form of metro? The lines we turned into trails or abandoned are now re-opened or opening back to rail service. There is talks now of going down Huntington drive and fremont from Cal state LA to LB to Pasadena and near the future going to Ontario! do you think the mass public will ever really know the truth? That we once had one of the best mass transit systems in the nation? lol
I've been noticing this for the past 25 years The Pacific Electric didn't die because of a conspiracy. It died because it was a private company that couldn't make the bottom line after the system had grown large and was financially unsustainable to operate and maintain properly. There were plans as early as the 1920s to ask for government support to expand the PE, but those things were unheard of back then, and the political will to fund those things was nonexistent. It was NEVER "public transit" in the sense that we know public transit today, which is a semigovernmental agency funded by public dollars. All transit in the US before the middle of the 20th century was run by private companies. Most eventually failed, and the ones that succeeded eventually got turned over or bought by city governments or other public entities.
Speaking of which, today is the 3rd anniversary of the Metro Expo Line (which runs on the same Right of Way as the old PE Santa Monica Air Line)!
I rather take a sub or trolley ANY day over a bus. I hate the bus. Late, crowded, always the interesting characters.
I believe I read that in the late 1930s just before WW-II, a person could ride all the way from San Diego to Seattle on a succession of interurban lines, without ever boarding a Class-1 long distance train. I also believe that at least one of those lines provided a through sleeper and diner, though I could be mistaken on this. There also was a vast network of interurban lines throughout the Midwest, i.e. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc.
HA! that's the line that had me shaking my head. I swear it seems the metro guys just look back at the maps for guidance.lol
I've read comments, some from back before WWII, where people were forecasting an eventual and VERY costly rebuilding of the interurban systems. This is why you've possibly seen a couple of us angrily commenting of the stupid decisions presently ongoing in western Washington. Where well engineered rail routes are still be ripped out, which connect urban and suburban areas, and could far more easily be converted to rail transit use.... Oh well.
I know for a fact that this was untrue. The San Diego Electric Railway only went as far north as La Jolla, and the Pacific Electric only went as far south as Newport Beach -- leaving a gap of some 76 miles. Also there's a considerable gap between the cities along the coast and to the Bay Area. And even today there is absolutely nothing between Tacoma, WA and the Portland, OR area but forest. Keep in mind that before WWII a lot of areas we consider urban or suburban today were only barely-inhabited rural or forest or desert regions, which didn't even have paved roads in many cases.
Why does this shake your head? After the PE folded, many of these abandoned lines were owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1991, the SP sold those lines to the predecessor of Metro for future transit use. So these properties were all destined to be used as transit lines.
I shake my head because this could of all been had for years. If they could get a trolley down to the pier that would be awesome!
Probably what I read was the vision of a far-sighted individual who foresaw what could be, if only...... Then there's that wonderful phrase - Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.
There were indeed visions of such an enterprise. And fair sized chunks did have some interurban service. But the dream of linking it all never happened. The Great depression, WWII, the mass production of autos post-war.... Such a dream still exists today. But that will require enormous sums money, (likely beyond billions of dollars), and decades of court battles.
It's opening next year. There was no political will for rail transit in Los Angeles in the '60s and '70s, that's why it took so long. It wasn't until 1980 when voters finally wanted to have a rail system.
