1928: Pacific Electric Railways inaugurates its famous “Sunday Pass” allowing passengers to travel on unlimited runs for $2.50.
Over 2,500 passes are sold on subsequent Sundays.
More information can be found in the May, 1928 issue of Pacific Electric Magazine.
1949: The California Assembly’s Fact-Finding Committee on Highways, Streets And Bridges submits its “Rapid Transit for Metropolitan Areas and Related Problems: Preliminary and Supplemental Report No. II” to Sam L. Collins, Speaker of the Assembly.
The report serves as an alternative response to the Rapid Transit Action Group of Los Angeles’ proposal for incorporating surface rail into newly-built freeways.
The Committee finds that suspended monorails in freeway medians and an “underground tube system” is a practical component of an overall transportation system for Los Angeles.
It suggests a “network of single-track, underground tubes, carrying high-speed, semiautomatic electric trains, especially designed, serving the central, more densely populated, 175-square mile area…a system of surface feeder-lines, carrying motor buses, inter-urban cars, trolley coaches and streetcars, serving the outer, less densely populated areas and transferring passengers to the underground tube system.
The report is one of the earliest proposals for monorail transit systems in Los Angeles.
More information can be found in the Rapid Transit for Metropolitan Areas and Related Problems: Preliminary Supplemental Report No. II full-text report.
1992: Civil disturbances rock the City of Los Angeles for six consecutive days following the acquittal of four police officers in the videotaped beating of a motorist one year earlier.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman presents proclamation to SCRTD Board President Marv Holden and General Manager Alan Pegg (Click for more information)
The Southern California Rapid Transit District eventually suspends all bus service in the area but plays a pivotal role in restoring calm by rescuing stranded passengers and transporting public safety and military personnel, as well as setting up an emergency command center at Division 5.
The full story of how SCRTD employees played an historic part in this episode can be found in our Primary Resources blog post.
