“Every city has had its boom, but the history of Los Angeles…should be regarded as one continuous boom punctuated at intervals with major explosions.” 
—Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land, 1946

Overdrive is the first major exhibition to survey Los Angeles’ complex urban landscape and diverse architectural innovations.

We have supplied The Getty with many different items from our unique and valuable collection to include in this exhibit.

These resources include:

• a 1937 Traffic Survey of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
• a 1946 brochure for a proposed regional freeway system
• a 1946 proposal for a traffic solution program based on removing sidewalks in downtown Los Angeles
• a 1954 study proposing an undergound road network for express buses in downtown Los Angeles
• a 1962 rendering of a proposed Alweg monorail station at Wilshire Boulevard & Fairfax Avenue

Our 1948 “Rail Rapid Transit Now!” report will also be featured in the exhibit catalog publication.

As the exhibit website notes:

During the 20th century, Los Angeles rapidly evolved into one of the most populous and influential industrial, economic, and creative capitals in the world.

Innovations promoted by enlightened patrons and visionary planners and architects transformed an expansive, latent landscape into a vibrant laboratory for cutting-edge design.Overdrive refers to the extraordinary pace and worldwide impact of L.A.’s impressive growth.

The term also alludes to the fact that an engine churning at incredible speed may overheat.

In the face of complicated civic, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges, L.A. has continued to recalibrate and foster bold new cycles of architectural exploration.This groundbreaking exhibition provides an engaging view of the region’s diverse urban landscape, including its ambitious freeway network, sleek corporate towers, whimsical coffee shops, popular shopping malls, refined steel-and-glass residences, and eclectic cultural institutions.

Drawings, photographs, models, films, animations, oral histories, and ephemera illustrate the complex dimensions of L.A.’s rich and often underappreciated built environment, revealing this metropolis’s global impact.

Those involved with transportation will find two areas of the exhibit of particular interest.

 

Car Culture

 

Los Angeles’s identity is inextricably linked with the automobile. During the mid-20th century, cars were strategically transformed from convenient modes of personal transportation into rapidly produced, gleaming symbols of self-expression.

Major components of this section of the exhibit include Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles and a retrospective of Googie Architecture.

Once a disparaging term for a new type of roadside commercial building, “Googie” has become a beloved dimension of Los Angeles.

Urban Networks

The daring expansion of Los Angeles’s water and power infrastructure, the aggressive implementation of its pioneering freeway plan, and the strategic development of its major transportation hubs all fueled the metropolis’s phenomenal growth. The urban networks of Los Angeles were the foundation of the region’s transformation into a global powerhouse.

The Overdrive exhibit looks at the rapid development of freeway planning and construction across the city, from the nation’s first – the Arroyo Seco Parkway (1940) – to a freeway comprehensive master plan in 1947.

A retrospective of Los Angeles International Airport and “Water and Power” are also covered.

There is also a fascinating look at public transportation.

Los Angeles’ public transportation system has been a source of fascination and frustration for generations. Established by real-estate developer Henry Huntington, the Pacific Electric Railway was once the largest interurban rail system in the world. Yet escalating levels of automobile ownership, longer riding times due to traffic, deferred maintenance, and declining profitability all contributed to its demise in the 1950s.

From the exhibit website:

Plans were constantly devised, though not always implemented, for experimental mass-transportation strategies, including elevated bus lines, monorails, and transit-oriented developments, such as Rail Rapid Transit.

The economic and psychological toll of increased traffic, as well as L.A.’s greater density, made improved mobility an urgent civic need. In 1990, L.A. County purchased the remaining rail right-of-ways from the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, laying the foundation for the light-rail, subway, and rapid-bus networks constructed in the region over the last decades.

Other major sections of the Overdrive exhibit include “Engines of Innovation” (covering media, entertainment, oil, international commerce, higher education; “Community Magnets” (including The Music Center, the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, retail centers and places of faith); and “Residential Fabric” (case study houses, planned communities, multifamily housing, visionary houses).

A wonderful video gallery and oral history collection compliment the exhibit online, and the exhibit catalog publication features some of our works as well.

Meanwhile, many more of our resources will be featured this Summer in an exhibit titled “Never Built: Los Angeles” at the A+D Museum.

This show:

“looks at visionary works that had the greatest potential to reshape the city, from buildings to master plans, parks to follies and transportation proposals any of which could have transformed both the physical reality and the collective perception of the metropolis.

The stories surrounding these projects shed light on a reluctant city whose institutions and infrastructure have often undermined inventive, challenging urban schemes.”

We are honored to continue sharing our rich historical legacy with a wide audience and we look forward to these two wonderful exhibits!

This week marks the anniversary of the 1937 National Transportation Week celebrations in Los Angeles.

We reviewed the event for last year’s 75th anniversary, and included video footage of child actress Shirley Temple helping out with the launch of the new PCC streetcars in Los Angeles.

In the newsreel footage, 8-year old Shirley receives an official “gold card” of the City of Los Angeles.

Later, she has been deputized as “Conductor Number One” and takes fare from inaugural riders, including Los Angeles Mayor Frank Shaw and Los Angeles City Attorney Ray Chesebro.

Library, Archives and Records staff have viewed this footage countless times, but this week, we caught something we never heard before.

At the 0:42 – 0:43 mark, viewers can see one of the dignitaries boarding the streetcar while saying “Shirley, buy yourself a new automobile.”

Who was it?  We may never know, but it does offer an opportunity to look at the interplay between automobiles and streetcars less than a decade later.

In 1945, the controlling interest in Los Angeles Railway was purchased from the Huntington estate by National City Lines, run by the five Fitzgerald Brothers.

They renamed it Los Angeles Transit Lines, and at the end of World War II, they sought to substitute buses on most of the existing streetcar lines.

One time railroad man E. Roy Fitzgerald had bought up dozens of small and medium sized transit companies in the late 1930s and almost without exception, quickly motorized them.

General Motors, Mack Truck, oil and tire companies were among NCL’s stockholders.

Could one of the Fitzgeralds been on the scene eight years earlier advising Shirley Temple to buy a car?  Probably not.

But the true history of Los Angeles Transit Lines and streetcar demise in Los Angeles has been debated for decades.

One thing is certain:  It is far more complicated than what has been perpetuated in various urban myths as well as in the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

At any rate, it is rather unimaginable that anyone would attend a public transportation event today and suggest that the host buy an automobile, even as a joke!

As for Mayor Shaw, his administration (1933-1938) was seen as one of the most corrupt in Los Angeles history.

He was recalled the following year by the electorate — the first successful recall ever of a mayor of a major American city.

I have been named a 2013 Library Journal “Mover & Shaker”!

Each year, just a handful of individuals are selected from thousands of information professionals to be honored as the nation’s most innovative and accomplished. (There are more than 120,000 libraries in the United States, and U.S. public libraries alone employ over 46,000 professional librarians).

First of all, I consider this award as an honor for the Library itself, and none of this would have been possible without the vision and leadership of Library, Archives and Records Administrator Matthew Barrett.

Matt has created and sustains an environment in which his employees can grow, thrive and succeed.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to join him in providing access to a world of information and knowledge surrounding transit and transportation issues.

His commitment to excellence has allowed me to explore new tools and resources that build on our previous accomplishments in providing excellent service to our staff while continuing to inform the public, reach new users, and promote the importance of transportation in our community.

I also have to wholeheartedly thank our other staff and interns who have helped us realize such great success.

Now in its 137^th year of publication, Library Journal is the oldest and most respected publication for information professionals.

The “Movers & Shakers” Award, one of the most prestigious in the profession, recognizes those who are shaping the future of libraries and the services they provide:  “Librarians and others in the library field who are doing extraordinary work to serve their users and to move libraries of all types and library services forward.”

We are the only government agency library in the United States to receive the honor this year.

I have served as our Digital Resources Librarian since August, 2008.  Since joining Metro, I have developed a digital asset policy framework, assumed responsibility for our website, deployed and managed a platform of several social media sites and launched a collection digitization program to provide 24/7 access to our resources.  Additionally, I took over materials cataloging functions for the library following a staff reduction.

The Movers & Shakers Award recognizes several Library contributions to our organization.  My work includes the collection, distribution and publication of the Los Angeles Transportation Headlines each work day.

Nearly eight years old (ancient history for social media),  Matt began publishing the Los Angeles Transportation Headlines way back in 2005. It continues to grow in size and readership every year.

This aggregated news content is disseminated to thousands of transportation employees, contractors, consultants, educators, transit advocates and other enthusiasts, driving the water-cooler conversation about transit in Los Angeles.

In 2010, I launched our highly regarded Primary Resources Blog which lends a voice to our collection, highlighting and providing context for lesser-known resources important to today’s transit and transportation planning in Southern California.  These posts have been repurposed in several news sources and transportation-oriented blogs.

An important component of Primary Resources is our “This Date In Los Angeles Transportation History” calendar.  This feature serves multiple functions:  reminding users of our local transportation history on a daily basis; promoting our rich array of documents, photos, video, maps and other assets; building a tool that captures the context of where we have been and where we are going; serving as a foundation for a knowledge management tool to tie all of our resources together.

I have also been incredibly fortunate to become involved in and assume leadership of LA as Subject, a network of more than 230 archives, libraries, museums and historical societies who collections pertain to the history and culture of Southern California.

I have served as the Executive Chair of the organization since 2011, leading the organization to develop its first strategic plan in its 16-year history.  The plan’s three-year goals include online exhibit and gallery space, development of a research portal related to our collections, exploring the possibility of a “Los Angeles Summit” for researchers and new new events and participatory experiences for both members and the public.

I am now focused on several forthcoming projects in addition to my other duties.

I am working with Library, Archives and Records staff to coordinate the systematic digitization of our collection to provide greater access to the Library.

The increase in our digital assets provides even greater content for our social media properties and users’ needs.  (Already, our work in digitizing historic Los Angeles traffic plans has led to our participation in a landmark joint exhibit between the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute and another prominent exhibit at Los Angeles’ Architecture and Design Museum this year).

I am also working with staff to create a Knowledge Base for transportation resources.

This “wiki” for Los Angeles transit and transportation information will not only bring together disparate resources on complex topics, but will also capture archived previously-answered requests for information to serve as a “search-here-first” option for Library users.

I am also looking forward to presenting an all-day pre-conference workshop at the Society of California Archivists next month as well as a session at the Internet Librarian conference in October regarding our challenges and successes with digitization and social media.

As Los Angeles continues to pursue the most ambitious mobility agenda in the nation, access to information is more important than ever before.  I am so excited to work with Matt and the rest of our staff to champion our valuable collection while advocating for a “24/7” library that informs, educates and inspires.

The interdisciplinary nature of transportation puts me in touch with not just transit and transportation every day, but engineering, finance, urban planning, sociology, local and national politics, architecture, geology, demographics, law, and emerging technologies as well.

I also have to thank our collection itself.  If it weren’t so interesting, we would not have racked up over 2.5 million views on our online Flickr photo-sharing site, and thousands of more views on YouTube, Tumblr, Historypin, our Tiki-Toki timeline of local transportation history and other sites that allow us to respond to the huge appetite for transportation information and history.

Finally, I want to thank all of our users for making this job so much fun.

Knowing that we have so many Headlines and Primary Resources readers, Flicker viewers, YouTube watchers, catalog searchers and others out there who appreciate what we do makes it a labor of love.

You can read my Library Journal “Movers & Shakers” profile here, and learn more about this year’s honorees here.

–Kenn Bicknell, Digital Resources Librarian

[Above: Metro Library's new interactive timeline for Los Angeles transit history. "X" out the introduction box and move the chronology slider along the bottom to reposition the timeline. You may click on each transit operator for more information and links to photos. You may also access a full-screen version here]

We are proud to present two new historical resources for public consumption:  a comprehensive, interactive timeline for Los Angeles transportation agencies dating back to 1874 along with an organizational flow chart explaining their relationship to one another.

These two new resources which will help everyone understand our complex and often confusing legacy of over 220 transit agencies during the last 140 years.

We previously featured a flowchart on our webpages which contained links to various photo collections on our Flickr photo site.

Last summer, intern Kelly Minta began revamping these resources using new, robust social media tools to convey this complex information more clearly while continuing her work on other projects.

Kelly explains that:

The most interesting part of researching the timeline was discovering how intrinsic transit was to Los Angeles History.

For example, the Los Angeles and Aliso Street Railroad Company (1877- 1899) added a second line because baseball was becoming a popular American pastime and fans needed ways to get to games in Los Angeles.

It’s really interesting to look at who the prominent figures were in creating some of these lines.  Judge Robert M. Widney, who was also a founder of USC, owned the Spring and West 6th Street Railroad and founded the East Los Angeles and Pedro Railway Company. Henry Huntington owned the Pacific Electric Railway. 

Because rail transit is publicly owned in Los Angeles today, it’s also interesting to think of a time when powerful businessmen or civic leaders would have owned urban rail lines. 

Because rail lines were owned by many different private companies, passengers would often have to transfer and buy new tickets on one rail line that ran different rail company cars on its tracks, in order to complete a trip.

Overall, I think that what the timeline does is illustrate the response of transit to what was going on at that point in history. 

As automobiles became more prevalent, funding was being directed towards building roads and freeway infrastructure and we see the rise of the bus as a means of public transit. 

Now that roads are congested, we see more funding for alternate means of transit like subways, light rail, and even dedicated bike lanes.

We have deployed Tiki-Toki timeline software and PeoplePlotr organization chart software to help explain the rich legacy of transit and transportation in Southern California as Metro continues to plan, construct and operate a growing network of multi-modal projects across Los Angeles County.

After more than six months, these tools are available for everyone to use, share and enjoy.

[Above: Metro Library's new interactive "family tree" for Los Angeles transit history. Click the timeline tab to move the chronology slider along the bottom. You may click on each transit operator for more information and links to photos. You may also access a full-screen version here]

The finished product is so good that Tiki-Toki selected our History of Transit in Los Angeles to feature on their blog as their inaugural “Timeline of the Month.”  This is quite an honor, considering they had 100,000 timelines to choose from!

The abundance of free, flexible online software and social media tools are a boon for government agencies looking to communicate complex processes.

Over the past few years, we have dug into our archives to tell some of the less-known but fascinating stories from our past.

Digitizing our assets and disseminating them through new tools and technology ensures that there are many more to come.

Metro Rideshare campaign launch (Click for more information)

Going back as far as at least the Gold Rush, California has been built on promotion — and we lost one of our greatest boosters this week.

Television host Huell Howser criss-crossed the state promoting our diverse history and culture, uncovering little-known episodes from our past and the back story of better known landmarks and events on California’s Gold and other programs.

(Click for more information)

Howser was a longtime resident of Los Angeles, and had his own history with Southland transportation.

He served as the region’s official Rideshare spokesman, and we have uncovered a few photos from our Archive to remind us that Huell was a fan of transit and transportation, too.

(Click for more information)

Howser emceed the 2007 Golden Pylon awards at an annual luncheon which honors traffic reporters’ efforts to keep Southern California on the move.

Also in 2007, Howser brought personality to the launch of Metro’s Rideshare campaign as well as the 9th Annual Diamond Awards which honor successful rideshare programs across the region.

(Click for more information)

After being invited to host the ceremony, Howell remarked, “People like me don’t really know what rideshare is,” discovering that rideshare includes a variety of alternative means to avoiding traffic other than carpooling, such as telecommuting, riding a bike to work, taking public transportation, and vanpooling.

He lent his unique persona to rideshare ads, webcasts and events, and explored commute options in Southern California as part of his popular television shows.

Two years ago, Huell revisited the Pacific Electric Subway tunnel below Los Angeles which moved streetcars between downtown and Glendale Boulevard from 1925 to 1955:

Cable car on Downey (now, North Broadway), circa late 1880s. Courtesy Huntington Library Photo Archives collection. (Click to enlarge)

It was announced yesterday that plans to bring streetcars back to Broadway in downtown Los Angeles took a giant step forward.

Business owners and residents with an approximate three-block radius of the proposed streetcar route voted to tax themselves to help fund the project.

The new parcel tax is expected to fund approximately half of the streetcar’s estimated $125 million construction budget, bringing streetcar service to the area for the first time in a half century.

This development provides us with an opportunity to look back at streetcars on Broadway — once one of the most important streets in all of Los Angeles.

Even more photos of early streetcars on Broadway can be found in our online Flickr photo archive and in our image collection mapped on Historypin.

Los Angeles Transit Lines southbound on Broadway at Olympic Boulevard, circa 1956 (Click to enlarge)

Los Angeles Transit Lines “P” Line, Broadway at 7th Street, circa 1956 (Click to enlarge)

“5″ Line on Broadway at Main Street alongside “F” Line, December 7, 1954 (Click to enlarge)

Los Angeles Transit Lines “P” Line northbound on Broadway at 7th Street, circa 1956 (Click to enlarge)

LAMTA “P” Line southbound on Broadway at 11th Street, 1960 (Click to enlarge)

Los Angeles Railway “P” Line in “War Bond and Stamps” livery, 1943 (Click to enlarge)

At the 7th Annual LA as Subject Archives Bazaar last month, archivist Denise Villegas participated in a “Pecha Kucha-style lightning round” highlighting each collection’s most unusual documents or artifacts. Her presentation captivated the audience, so we are now sharing it with everyone:

When I tell people that I work in the archive for Metro, the general response is something like, “Metro? Like the buses? What kind of stuff do you guys have?”

And while this is a pretty simple question, I tend to get a bit stumped while trying to answer because even though we are a physically small archive, we have a lot of material.

So usually my answer is something along the lines of, “Yes! Like the buses! We have quite a bit of stuff actually…Generally photographs, documents, ephemera, and objects documenting Metro and its predecessors.  Material that documents decision making, transit planning, and significant changes and events related to public transportation in Los Angeles.”

Our photos from around 1920 to 1950 depicting L.A’s streetcar days are frequently republished and are pretty popular online, which makes a lot of sense – it’s an interesting time period.

And usually in conversation, I stop there.

It’s a good general description of what the archive holds.

But somehow it doesn’t encompass the fact that sometimes we get things like this, which is a reproduction of a molar from mammut americanum, the American mastodon.

How is a mastodon like a bus? There is material about them in our archive.

Metro’s Red Line, the subway connecting Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles to North Hollywood, was built in three segments.

While working on segments 2 and 3, construction workers uncovered a significant amount of fossils – over 2,000 – ranging from fossilized wood, fish, small mammals, and fossils from larger mammals like the American mastodon.

Segment 2, where this molar was found, is the portion of the subway connecting MacArthur Park to the station at Hollywood and Vine and includes the short leg to Wilshire and Western, which is now known as the Purple Line.

The mastodon molar represents one of the large land mammal specimens that were recovered during construction of Segment 2.

There was also a fragment from the tusk of either a Columbian mammoth or another American mastodon, as well as bones and teeth from a western horse, a western camel, and an ancient bison.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, Metro’s predecessor who was responsible for construction of the subway, was aware of the potential for finding fossils before construction of Segment 2 because the surface had been geologically mapped in 1981.

Working with Paleo Environmental Associates, a plan was created in which construction of the subway would reduce as much of the negative affects on any paleontological resources as possible.

A monitor was almost always on site of construction, inspecting rock and debris exposed by earth moving as it occurred.

If the monitor discovered any specimens, he or she could divert earth moving from the site for as long as needed. Construction sites were also inspected regularly by the principal investigator of the paleontological team.

It was determined that any specimens found would be sent to recognized museum repositories to be made available for future study.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley received many of the findings. Copies of the final report were given to several other institutions.

According to archaeologist Bruce Lander who wrote the final report, the fossils found while building the subway are “one of the most important projects we’ve had in terms of providing new information and data to the scientific community.”

Prior to the recovery of these fossils, very little was known about the fossil record in Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Archaeologists and researchers were able to learn a lot more about Los Angeles as it existed millions of years ago.

For instance, the horse, bison, and mammoth were grazers, but the camel ate both grass and leaves, suggesting the area was once a savanna woodland habitat.

Plant and wood fossils also gave scientists more clues about what the climate was like, and how it changed over time. Plant fossils even provided evidence of a massive flood where Universal City station now stands.

The station art at Hollywood and Western is designed to reflect the city’s more ancient past.

It commemorates the archaeological finds and placards embedded in the station’s mezzanine walls inform the public about what was found in that area.

Reproductions of some of the fossil finds were created and are currently on display in the Metro Transportation Library.

Part of the reason I think this story is so interesting, besides the fact that everyone likes fossils, is that people generally don’t seem to regard Los Angeles as a big city for either public transportation or history and the discovery of these fossils brought both of those subjects into the news.

This subway that was meant to provide a foundation for modern rail rapid transit in L.A. and simply carry people from one point to another efficiently ended up bringing historical evidence to the present day and making completely different kinds of connections.

39 of the fish species discovered during Red Line construction had never been seen before.

By anyone.

So even though Los Angeles may not be a city best known for public transportation or its history beyond glamorous celebrities and Hollywood, those things clearly have a major role in the city.

This is obvious when you look at how the rail system has expanded since this molar was found and if you look at all the people here today who are interested in this city’s archives.

Los Angeles has a lot of interesting stories for those who choose to listen and I think it’s really great that our archive gets to be one of the city’s storytellers.

(Click to enlarge)

Southern California history comes alive once again at the 7th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar on the campus of USC on Saturday, October 27 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Organized by LA as Subject and presented by the University of Southern California Libraries, this free annual event celebrates the diversity of Southern California’s history and culture.

Scholarly researchers, students, journalists, documentary filmmakers, history buffs and others simply interested in exploring the stories of Los Angeles will discover incredible resources and knowledge from more than 80 participating collections.

It all unfolds in USC’s Doheny Library — where all of SoCal history comes together all day, all in one place.

The Archives Bazaar draws its strength from the breadth and variety of its participants’ collections.

The day’s festivities are comprised of two parts:  the exhibits on the first floor of the Library, and the programming on the second floor.

Large institutions such as the Getty Research Institute, Autry National Center of the American West, the California Historical Society, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and several UCLA libraries will exhibit items from their libraries, archives and museums.

They will present at the bazaar along with smaller organizations and private collections whose materials fill the gaps left in the region’s official history.

Some of these other organizations include the Friends of Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, the Museum of the San Fernando Valley, the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the California African American Museum, El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, the Southern California Genealogical Society, the Writers Guild Foundation Library & Archive and the Japanese American National Museum.

Of course, the Metro Transportation Library & Archive will be there once again as well.

(Click to enlarge)

The programming for this year’s event include panel discussions regarding Los Angeles and “Car Culture”; a look at “CSI Los Angeles: Archival Case Study Investigations” where forensics meet research; the history of Los Angeles in vintage postcards; Southern California ranchos and homesteads featuring speakers from Pio Pico State Historic Park, Rancho Los Cerritos, and the Homestead Museum.

An educational session titled “On The Record: Getting Started With Oral History” will also take place. The workshop will be presented by the Director of the Center for Oral and Public History at California State University, Fullerton.

Two other very special events will be on the schedule.

“A Very Quick Tour Of Los Angeles Area Archives” will feature quick-paced 5-minute presentations to connect attendees to some of the more interesting collections around the region. Each LA as Subject member will share one notable item from their collections as a springboard to introducing their institution in a “pecha kucha” style lightning round of talks.

Finally, visitors will have a chance to see a screening of “Everyday Sunshine: The Story Of Fishbone.”

This documentary tells the story of the musical band that demolished the walls of genre and challenged the racial stereotypes and political order of the music industry — and the nation — in the early 1980s.

At the Archives Bazaar, LA as Subject unveils its new Strategic Plan.

This three-year roadmap for future activities refocuses the organization’s activities on supporting and strengthening individual members as well as the independent LA as Subject network overall.

Many new activities and endeavors are on tap, from providing online exhibit space for smaller institutions to technology initiatives to expanded workshops and tours.

Metro’s Digital Resources Librarian Kenn Bicknell is the Executive Committee Chair for LA as Subject and has led the Committee through a year-long process to devise this plan.

The Archives Bazaar is free and open to the general public, and this year visitors may take the Expo Line practically to the front door!

When the world returned to Los Angeles in 1984, fifty-two years after its inaugural Games, the Olympics had changed:  140 nations were represented, compared to 37 in 1932.

Even more so, the city and region were far different than a half-century prior when Los Angeles successfully welcomed the world and transported them to and from the Xth Olympiad in 1932.

The city population had grown from approximately 1.2 million to around 3.2 million, with more than twelve million in the metropolitan region.

And while Los Angeles had already been known in 1932 for its beautiful climate and as the center of the motion picture industry, by the 1980s it was also world-famous for something else — its traffic.

Before the Games were even awarded, transportation became a primary concern regarding the viability of (let alone the success of) the games.

Los Angeles’ bus-only transit system peaked in the mid-1980s, but 550 more buses would be required to transport 40% of all Olympics spectators (Click to enlarge)

The 1984 Summer Olympics marked the first Summer Games since 1960 in Rome where a large city was not served by a regional rail system.

In pre-freeway 1932, the city was served by a network of Los Angeles Railway streetcars and interurban Pacific Electric rail lines.

That system was completely dismanted by 1963.

By the 1980s, many wondered how could Los Angeles, known for its world-class congestion, possibly move all parties involved, including an estimated 7 million spectators, to and from far-flung venues without impacting (or being impacted by) everyday commuters?

Caltrans had estimated that Olympics-related traffic would peak at 10% higher than normal during the 16-day competition period.

The entire transportation system would rely on buses.  A lot of them.

ROLE OF TRANSPORTATION PARTNERS

Planning began immediately after the Games were awarded to Los Angeles.

Extensive planning led to organized bus boarding after events

A year and a half before the Opening Ceremonies, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner did a five-part series on transportation planning for the Games.

The final installment on February 6, 1983 was a review of Caltrans’ extensive plans for freeway monitoring and other technological innovations which made traffic control a success.

The article profiled LAOOC transportation czar George McDonald, a 23-year public transportation veteran, including the last 11 with SCRTD.

In addition to all of the transportation coordination, he was directly responsible for transporting the “Olympic family.”

This included the athletes, coaches and trainers, Olympic officials and members of the international media, all totalling over 25,000.

O’Connell acknowledged that traffic aid could not be pushed onto the public:  “This isn’t Moscow.  We can’t force people to park miles away and bus to the events. But I believe people will make the switch once they are presented with the full picture.”

Olympic bus fleet crowds with directional signage, August 3, 1984

The LAOOC agreed to issue suggestions, maps and specific traffic plans as part of its package to ticket buyers.

But not everyone was convinced that the plan could be pulled off.

The August, 1983 issue of the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies Review quoted the head of the California Highway Patrol’s Olympic Planning Unit:  “Of all the problems we’re faced with with these Olympic Games, transportation is the surest and the most inevitable mess unless we get the cooperation and support of people to adust their use of their personal vehicles.”

The Los Angeles Times reported on January 27, 1983 that the same CHP leader warned that “traffic jams in the Coliseum area during the Games may be so severe that some motorists may abandon their cars on the freeway.  A good towing system will be necesary.”

An Olympic Transportation Advisory Committee was set up with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and all major transportation-related agencies.

The Downtown service plan (Click to enlarge)

The venues stretched from the canoeing and rowing site in Lake Casitas in Ventura County to the modern petathlon site in Coto de Caza in Orange County — a distance of over 130 miles.

With the Games spread out across four Southern California counties as well as many local jurisdictions, organizing the organizers was no small feat in itself.

The comprehensive traffic and transportation plan would include remote parking, shuttle buses, rerouting surface streets, scheduling events to avoid peak traffic, coordinating staggered work hours with the business community and public education.

The CHP was also responsible for the security of visiting dignitaries, including President Ronald Reagan who opened the games on July 28.

Checkpoints would open as early as 4 a.m. on the day of events to keep away everyone except ticket holders, local residents, authorized vehicles and participants.

Figueroa and Flower Streets — both of which border Exposition Park – were converted to one-way thoroughfares to expedite downtown traffic.

Freeway ramps were shut down at key points on the Harbor and Santa Monica Freeways were initated in addition to major street closures adjacent to the Coliseum and University of Southern California campus for the duration of the Games.

TRANSIT CHALLENGES & SUCCESSES

The Southern California Rapid Transit District was operating the nation’s largest all-bus system and was prepared to put a special 550-bus Olympic fleet into service along 24 shuttle, express and park-and-ride routes.

Celebrity public service announcements promoted the benefits of using public transportation during the Games

After meeting with city and state transportation officials as well as the LAOOC, the Transit District opeted to start from scratch in providing special service requiring more than 1,000 workers.

400 operators joined the efforts of 300 mechanics and service attendants, 150 student volunteers and 300 office staff to transport 40% of the Olympic spectators.

The plan was to successfully carry 4 out of every 10 spectators to the Coliseum, UCLA, Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium and other major venues.

The extra service was so vast it was comparable to starting up the 4th largest transit system in California from scratch for just a 16-day period.

But this was in addition to regularly scheduled service.

The September, 1984 issue of Headway, the SCRTD employee newsmagazine explained in retrospect:

“Compounding matters, RTD carried a record 1.6 million weekday boarding passengers on its existing service in June, only a month before the Games began.

Many bus lines were operating at capacity, particularly those traveling by Exposition Park.”

Even with five years of planning and comprehensive preventative measures, transportation planners feared the worst for “Black Friday” — the seventh day of the Games when the first track and field events began at the Coliseum.

Adding to the crowds at the Coliseum were the swimming and boxing competitions underway across the street at USC, with baseball at Dodger Stadium a few miles away and 14 other events going on in a corridor straddling downtown and stretching from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to UCLA on the city’s Westside.

The July, 1984 issue of Mass Transit magazine contains an excellent overview of transportation planning for the Games

All told, an estimated 405,000 attendees could be attending events on August 3 along with an untold number of additional spectators lining the shore to watch yachting off of Long Beach.

Planners hoped the Olympic Fleet would carry 326,000 people on Black Friday…and kept their fingers crossed.

At the east end of the Coliseum, an oblong bus facility, similar in shape to the Coliseum track, allowed SCRTD to disembark passengers near the famous Olympic Gateway statues beneath the Olympic flame.

Planners created a turnaround three bus-widths wide.  Buses on the outside lane loaded passengers, with those bound to and from Downtown  boarding at special passenger control gates on the north side of the loop.

On the inside track, the Transit District stored up to 20 buses, 10 on each side.  These idled until a berth opened, then swiftly moved to load passengers.

Fares were kept at a premium, as none of the regular budget was to be used to offset the Olympic Fleet’s $13.6 million budget.

A detailed SCRTD budget had been developed more than a year in advance to cover the 15-month period leading up to the Games and just after.

$2 one-way shuttle service and $6 one-way express rides longer than 20 miles were projected to make up 88% of the special service costs with the difference covered by the sale of commemorative tokens.

An exhaustive SCRTD Transit Service And Control Plan was disseminated one month prior to the Games, as well as detailed Operator Service Instructions covering the July 28 – August 12 timeframe.

An unparalleled Transit District communications program was used to inform the public of the special Olympic bus service.

More than 1.25 million copies of this 16-page brochure were distributed around the world instructing spectators on taking public transit to the Olympic venues (Click to enlarge)

Passengers were provided with a comprehensive Bus Service Guide To The 1984 Olympics covering each venue and how to get there using the dedicated Olympic Fleet.

In fact, over 1.25 million of these brochures were distributed worldwide.

An intensive advertising campaign was reinforced by an international media blitz.

SCRTD provided its own videotape about Olympic preparations to news stations and documentary producers from around the globe.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley attended the grand opening where he repeated a familiar theme: “Take the Bus to the Games.”

More than 1 million boarding passengers heeded his message.

Commuters opted to alter their driving habits and work hours and predictions of gridlock never materialized.

The exhaustive planning and inter-agency coordination was a success.

Not only was the region spared of debilitating congestion, traffic jams were nowhere to be found and the Los Angeles Area enjoyed some of the most carefree commuting in recent history.

Another upshot: smog was greatly reduced during the Olympics.  The clean air impressed both locals and visitors alike.

Transporting locals and visitors from around the world during our 1984 Olympics was so successful that several analyses were performed to understand why everything worked as well as it did.

In October 1984, SCRTD did extensive evaluation of the transit services during the Olympics to identify the factors contributing to their resounding success.

The following year, the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies issued their Olympics Transportation System Management Performance Analysis.

The Southern California Association of Governments coordinated an Olympic Legacy Task Force and developed an outreach program in 1986 to capture public impressions and capitalize on how traffic and transportation improvements during the Games could be made permanent.

SCAG later issued their transportation policy recommendations for freeway flow management, arterial flow management, truck delivery schedules, public and private sector employment commuting, public transit and urban form in a set of recommendations titled “The Olympic Legacy: Let’s Keep It Moving.”

Los Angeles’ Olympic transportation planning success is captured in this video titled “A Gold Medal Performance by Public Transit,” highlighted by testimonials from passengers from around the world.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ACHIEVEMENT

Transportation planner Jon Hillmer was part of the planning process and continues to work at Metro to this day as Director of Regional Service Councils.

He shared some memories with us this week regarding the unprecedented preparation for the Games.

He explained that Downtown was obviously the focal point for the events, but it was a challenge to find spaces large enough to stage lines of buses and lines for pre-paid fare holders.

One of the largest was an empty lot at Spring & 1st Streets where a courthouse once stood.

The September, 1984 issue of Headway contains numerous recollections of the transportation planning success from the Olympic Games

He recalled that the buses were usually loaded about 2/3 full to accomodate more stops en route to the venues.

Hillmer pointed out that all of the communications between staff working to coordinate service was done on hand-held radios.

Although less than 30 days ago, no one had the cellphones or web tools that we take for granted now.

To ensure that everything could run as smoothly as possible, SCRTD put the finishing touches on its own command Center a few blocks from the Caltrans headquarters.

Hillmer recalled that while there was a task force and a lot of advance planning, the execution was truly a team effort involving everyone at SCRTD in some way.

The proud and excited staff worked way beyond their normal schedules to ensure that things ran smoothly.

Everyone was advised to help protect patrons from pickpockets on crowded buses during the Games.

At the time, roving mechanic Steve Kaufmann, an 8-year employee, reported that “the service helped break down barriers.  We got to meet the people who work at the office, and they got to meet the operators, mechanics and instructors.”

Bus instructor Bob Johnson told Headways that “this is the first time that I was involved in something else outside instruction.  I never get a chance to see results out on the streets.  Now that I get to see how buses operate, it gives me a sense of self-satisfaction and a sense of pride.”

Johnson explained that “perhaps 90% of whatwe did was public relations work.”

Smiles and gestures went a long way toward overcoming language barriers.

Spivack noted that the Olympic bus fleet went out of their way to make sure that nobody got left behind, sometimes stopping to pick up stray spectators who were lost or wandered away.

Olympic bus service at Memorial Coliseum, August 3, 1984

Transportation planning for the 1984 Olympics was such a success that the organizers of several subsequent games contacted SCRTD and Metro to learn from the Los Angeles experience.

Former SCRTD and current Metro employee Gary Spivack said that officials from Salt Lake City, Sydney and even Beijing contacted Los Angeles transit leaders regarding the preparation for and execution of the 1984 transportation plan.

He also noted that elements of the plans were used in several other large-scale operations well after the Games, such as the Papal Visit to Los Angeles in 1987, bus bridges for major rail project construction and openings and as recently as last year’s highly-touted “Carmageddon.”

Hillmer recalls that the general feeling was that SCRTD staff took a great deal of pride not just in their city hosting the XXIII Olympiad, but also in the Transit District being relied upon by all of Los Angeles to keep the city moving for sixteen days and nights when Los Angeles welcomed back the world both in person and through their television and newspapers from around the world.

The September, 1984 Headway article pointed out that:

“For many employees, the Olympic bus service provided their first opportunity to work in a function outside their normal responsibility.”

The effects of the experience will not be quickly forgotten by those who served as passenger assistants.

Not forgotten, they say, for the sense of comradery, pride, warmth and efficiency evident at each boarding location.”

When a city wins the right to hold the Olympics, one of the oft cited advantages to the region is the catalytic effect upon the urban and transport projects of the host cities.

However, with unparalleled access to documents and records, author Eva Kassens-Noor questions and challenges this fundamental assertion of host cities who claim to have used the Olympic Games as a way to move forward their urban agendas in her new book, Planning Olympic Legacies: Transport Dreams And Urban Realities.

In fact, transport dreams to stage the “perfect games” of the International Olympic Committee and the governments of the host cities have lead to urban realities that significantly differ from the development path the city had set out to accomplish before winning the Olympic bid.

Ultimately it is precisely the IOC’s influence – and the city’s foresight and sophistication (or lack thereof) in coping with it – that determines whether years after the Games there are legacies benefitting the former hosts.

The text is supported by revealing interviews from lead host city planners and key documents, which highlight striking discrepancies between media broadcasts and the internal communications between the IOC and host city governments.

It focuses on the inside story of the urban and transport change process undergone by four cities (Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, and Athens) that staged the Olympics and forecasts London and Rio de Janeiro’s urban trajectories.

The final chapter advises cities on how to leverage the Olympic opportunity to advance their long-run urban strategic plans and interests while fulfilling the International Olympic Committee’s fundamental requirements.

This is a uniquely positioned look at why Olympic cities have – or do not have – the transport and urban legacies they had wished for. The book will be of interest to planners, government agencies and those involved in organizing future Games.