“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” — attributed to Seneca.
Today marks the end of our twenty year run of publishing Metro Library’s Los Angeles Transportation Headlines every work day.
As libraries go, Metro’s Transportation Research Library & Archive is a very special place. It is the largest transit-operator research library in the United States. But its own story is truly remarkable. In a city often regarded as “having no history,” it is extraordinary that Metro inherited the transit and transportation research collections of its predecessor agencies, dating back to the late 19th century.
Local transit was not operated by public agencies until 1958. But significant holdings of Pacific Electric Railways, Los Angeles Railway, and other organizations were passed down through the publicly-governed agencies from that point forward. This is truly surprising, given the complexity of regional transportation history in Los Angeles County.
If you have never explored our Los Angeles transit history family tree or Los Angeles transit interactive timeline, we invite you to explore those resources and consider how unlikely it was that all of our historical documents, reports, books, maps, photos, film, manuscripts and artifacts from myriad organizations all managed to end up together in one place. And, by all means, we invite you to dive into our Primary Resources site and the resources it contains.
Our vast (and unique) print and digital assets have allowed us to serve users across the region and around the world. Los Angeles has a unique urban form, and the quintessential auto-centric city produces an endless supply of those seeking to understand its history, development, and future.
We have worked to support our agency and its employees, as well as students, academics, historians, journalists, authors, bloggers and, of course, transit advocates and transit enthusiasts.
I have often said that you cannot understand Los Angeles without studying the role of water, the film industry, and transportation. So, we play an outsize role in helping answer the question, “What, exactly, is L.A.?”
The Los Angeles Transportation Headlines have been a powerful tool in that effort. We began collecting and distributing a few news stories every day.
But that challenge grew over time, as countless new developments impacted the breadth and depth of news and information documenting the evolution. Metro expanded its mobility agenda via the Measure R and Measure M funding referendums. We conceived, planned, opened, and expanded numerous rail and bus lines. We purchased Union Station, launched bike share, prepared for high-speed rail and witnessed the dawn of autonomous micromobility. We were with our readers through a multi-year global pandemic, where the coverage shifted yet again to include new aspects of telecommuting, safety, and social justice.
Through it all, we have kept our readers top of mind, in hopes of creating a more knowledgeable workforce and shedding greater light on this very niche — yet highly interdisciplinary — subject scope.
As Los Angeles — the 14th largest city in the world — prepares to host the 2026 World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Summer Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, we will continue to provide information, but in a broader format beyond our Headlines.
We will find new ways to share professional expertise, value-added context, research tips, new resource alerts, and to celebrate our cooperation, collaboration and accomplishments with others.
We’ll be back, and we hope to see and continue to serve you then.