Past Visions of Los Angeles’ Transportation Future: 1940s

The last 100 years of transit and transportation planning in Los Angeles hold stories full of challenges and opportunities, successes and failures, and some surprises, little known “firsts,” and enduring urban legends.

We are taking a look back — decade by decade — at key resources from our collection to contextualize the seminal traffic, transit, and transportation plans for the region in order to provide greater understanding of how we arrived where we are today.

The economic uncertainty of the 1930s gave way to a decade marked by a Second World War and continued rapid growth of Los Angeles. Military bases and ports serving the Pacific Theater in WWII, along with a burgeoning aerospace industry, primed Los Angeles for further growth — and all the planning, construction, operations and consequences that come with it.

Following the conceptualization of the “freeway” as a new type of parkway in 1933, the opening of the region’s first “freeway” (the Arroyo Seco Parkway) in 1939 set the stage for a decade of numerous, extensive studies and plans for a highway network serving the rapidly growing and densifying County.

One early effort was the July, 1941 Report on the Feasibility of a Freeway Along the Channel of the Los Angeles River from the San Fernando Valley to the Los Angeles – Long Beach Harbors.

The introduction of the report states that “the proposed river freeway offers the quickest means of solving many of the traffic problems related to a substantial block of the defense industries.”

It recommends that “the top of each levee be developed into a 4-lane roadway, approximately 50 feet wide.”

The 1941 Comprehensive Report on the Master Plan of Highways: County of Los Angeles Regional Planning District, Volume 1 (The Plan & Its Preparation) noted that over a million motor vehicles were traveling some 8 billion miles annually.

These statistics led the report authors to suggest in a chart that Los Angeles County’s population would begin leveling off at around 6 million by 1970, but also asks: “Since we can in no sense be certain that a future census will not record 10,000,000 or more inhabitants in the Los Angeles Region, shall we not then courageously and boldly even lay down our plans now for at least twice the present figure?”

That “present figure” in 1940 was 3 million, hence the plan for a population of 6,000,000.

It projects that by 1990, there will be approximately 2.5 million automobiles in the County (while the actual number is closer to twice that many).

As one can see in the illustration below depicting “normal” driving time at five minute intervals, a trip from the Civic Center to the coast would take approximately 40 minutes.

The report put forth eleven recommendations. These include:

That the basis for financing all acquisition and construction shall include the funds derived under Sate law from the motor vehicle fuel tax and from motor licenses
That State Legislation be sought to provide for the creation of a county-wide Highway Authority charged with the custody of all highway funds, and their expenditure in accordance with the Master Plan and a sound priority program based on actual needs
That each incorporated city within the Region be urged to adopt a Master Plan of Highways and precise official plans based thereon, in accordance with the procedure set forth in the Planning Act of the State of California.

Eighty years of highway construction, transit construction and operation, and other traffic mitigation measures have not lessened that drive time, as the population has far outstripped what was predicted and planned for in the earliest highway proposals.

The Los Angeles Department of City Planning’s 1941 Master Plan of Parkways noted that recent construction of the Arroyo Seco Parkway and Cahuenga Pass Freeway had already proven their worth. It deemed the term “parkway” as synonymous with “freeway” and “expressway,” differing only in the “character of the development.” This is explained as parkways holding the possibility of landscaping and other improvements over the “objectionable” features of the narrower “freeway.”

By the early 1940s, freeway planning was explored in the context of existing mass transit facilities, but were expected to be a necessary, integral part of overall transportation landscape in Los Angeles County.

This map highlights numerous transit routes that would supplement the proposed parkway system.

Their planning consisted of not just routes, but standardized features such as grade separations, interchanges, lane coloring, border treatment, emergency parking areas, accommodation for trucks and buses, ingress and egress, service stations, speed limits, signage, and lighting.

The freeways and vehicular traffic overall were becoming central to urban planning and the impact on commerce. Parking, pedestrianism, and travel habits were taken into consideration for planning.

The 1944 Transit Study for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area made it perfectly clear that parkways were not only vital to continued streetcar service in the city, but how much faster passengers could arrive via coach as opposed to rail, as shown here.