February 1: This Date in Los Angeles Transportation History

1904:  Crossroads Depot (later, Division 2) is officially opened as a Los Angeles Railways rail division at 53rd Street and South Park Avenue (later, Avalon Boulevard).

Los Angeles Railway Division 2, 1938

(Click for more information)

It stays in operation until July 31, 1932.

A second “Division 2,” known as the 16th Street Garage, opens on October 10, 1923.

 

 

1906:  All Pacific Electric Railway and Los Angeles Railway cars are to be equipped with fenders.

 

 

1917:  Jitneys become subject to regulation by the California Board Of Public Utilities.

 

 

1936:  A new 400-foot tunnel under Colorado and Ocean Avenues in Santa Monica is dedicated and opened.

 

McClure tunnel opening

(Click for more information)

The Olympic Tunnel joins the Roosevelt Highway (later, Pacific Coast Highway) with Lincoln Boulevard, as one more unit in the coast highway improvement program designed to eliminate traffic congestion between Santa Monica and Long Beach.

Tunnel opening ceremonies

Dignitaries at tunnel opening (Click for more information)

The tunnel is later renamed McClure Tunnel after Robert E. McClure, member of the State Highway Commission, in April 1970.

More information can be found in the February, 1936 issue California Highways and Public Works.

 

 

1954Metropolitan Coach Lines installs new IBM “accounting by electricity” equipment as part of a $15,000,000 five-year “plan of progress.”

The April, 1954 issue of Metro Coach News explains that:

“The purpose of the new system is threefold: speed, accuracy, and economy of operation.  When you contemplate the fact that sorting operations, for example, which are so time-consuming when done by hand, can be done at the rate of 650 a minute by the IBM sorter; or the fact that the most complicated bookkeeping calculations, which in pre-electronic days required a large office force, can now be done and recorded in a matter of seconds by a single operator who may control an entire room full of deadly accurate auxiliary accounting machines — then you have an idea of the value of an IBM system.”

 

 

1982:  Southern California Rapid Transit District introduces a new $1 token featuring the portrait of local transportation pioneer Henry E. Huntington.

 

Huntington token

(Click for more information)

 

It is the first time an individual is honored by a public transit agency with the minting of a coin for fare payment.

 

 

1993:  The first legal day of existence for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority according to AB152 (Katz), also known as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Reform Act of 1992.

The legislation creates a merger of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to form the LACMTA, which holds its first day of business at its first Board meeting three days later.