Stephen Coyle and Daniel Dunigan’s Sustainable And Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan For Towns, Cities, And Regions is the ultimate step-by-step action plan guidebook for making communities resilient, resourceful and healthy. Many communities today face an unprecedented struggle to…
Monthly Archives: March 2011
Our Past Revealed: Southern California Transportation History Comes Alive Through Images And Stories Found In Local Archives, Libraries & Museums
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
The new year got off to a brisk start for L.A. as Subject, the research alliance comprised of over 230 institutional and individual members (including Metro’s Transportation Library & Archive) who collect, preserve and provide access to the history and…
Advertising Los Angeles’ Bus Service On Television: 1956 Cartoon Commercials & How They Were Made
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
Transit promotion is everywhere. The ever-expanding media universe and our constant contact with it provides ample opportunities to spread the word about the benefits of public transportation. These days, transit marketing can be found not only in traditional media…
Research Roundup: ARRA Meets Passenger Rail, Overlooked Density & The Use Of Advance Construction
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
In January, 2010, President Obama announced that 31 states and the District of Columbia would receive $8 billion in funds from the American Recovery And Reinvestment Act to plan, develop, and construct high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects in corridors around…
New And Notable: Aerotropolis & Triumph Of The City
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
John D. Kasarda’s Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next is a brilliant, eye-opening look at the new phenomenon providing a glimpse of the way we will live in the near future — and ways in which we’ll do business as…
“Metro Diesels Don’t Cause Smog”: The 1954 Tests “Proving” L.A. Buses Were Clean & Actually “Helped” Solve The Smog Problem
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
Earlier this year, Metro retired its last diesel bus from its fleet of over 2,2000 vehicles. At that time, we took a closer look at the early history of diesel buses in Los Angeles and how Los Angeles Motor Coach‘s 1940 fleet…
Resources To Know: Mapping All Of America With Key Census Data, Block By Block
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
The New York Times recently released its mapping project containing information from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The Survey is a statistical sampling of 1 in 10 Americans between the years 2005 and 2009. Unlike the decennial census we are…
New And Notable: Helvetica And the New York City Subway System, Private Investment In Transportation Infrastructure & L.A. In The 1930s
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
For years, the signs in the New York City subway system were a bewildering hodge-podge of lettering styles, sizes, shapes, materials, colors and messages. The original mosaics (dating from as early as 1904), displaying a variety of serif and sans…
Celebrating Women’s History Month: The First Women Transit Operators In Los Angeles, Which Led The Way As “Motormanettes”
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 0 Comments
The first reported instance of a woman working on Los Angeles streetcars occured during World War I, in May of 1918. She was recruited from the Los Angeles Railway’s office help, and worked as a conductor collecting fares and making…
Arroyo Seco Parkway At 70: The Unusual History Of The “Pasadena Freeway,” California Cycleway & Rare Traffic Plan Images
by Metro Digital Resources Librarian • • 3 Comments
This Winter marks the 70th anniversary of the oldest freeway in the United States: The Arroyo Seco Parkway opened on December 30, 1940. Built during the Great Depression, construction of the parkway put a lot of people to work. At…