June 23: This Date in Los Angeles Transportation History

1887:  M.L. Wicks and associates organize the Los Angeles County Railroad Company to build and operate a steam railroad from Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast somewhere in Santa Monica.

1941:  The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approves and adopts the Master Plan of Parkways.  The final form or design of the parkway system is influenced largely by the topography and physical characteristics of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, public transit, parkways, planning

This system of grade-separated highways, designed for the safe and rapid movement of motor vehicles, is developed and planned by the Transportation Engineering Board, and includes never-built projects such as Normandie Parkway, Venice Parkway, Olympic Parkway, Slauson Parkway, Ocean Parkway, and Whitnall Parkway.

More information can be found in the 1942 Mass Transit Facilities and the Master Plan of Parkways full-text report.

1994:  Subway tunneling breaks through below the Wilshire/Vermont Station, formally tying together all of the Metro Red Line Segment 2 corridors: Wilshire, Vermont and Hollywood.

Subway tunneling breakthrough at Wilshire/Vermont Station, June 23, 1994 (Click to enlarge)

The Wilshire/Vermont Station requires an unusual tunnel configuration.

To allow for curves and changes in direction, one tunnel is built on top of the other where the tunnel approaches Wilshire from the north, instead of the traditional side-by-side configuration that is used throughout the rest of the Metro Red Line to date.

Four tunneling machines, each weighing about 200 tons, are used to complete the project.

More information can be found in the June-July, 1994 issue of Metro Moves employee news magazine.