The report concludes that continued rail operation using either present equipment or new P.C.C. cars would result in heavy financial losses even if track and roadway and facilities were in first class condition.
The report recommends that Pacific Electric passenger rail service should be discontinued and that modern motor coach operation should be established to improve both service and profits.
The act creating the LAMTA requires the proposal of a new mass transit system for Los Angeles which would include a route across the San Fernando Valley and within 4 miles of either side of the Los Angeles River from Van Nuys Boulevard and Roscoe Boulevard in Van Nuys to American Boulevard at Broadway in Long Beach.
“Monorail rapid transit was devised as a promising answer to the need, evident in many communities, of providing mass rapid transit in face of existing surface-traffic congestion and of the high costs of alternate forms of rapid transit, notably the subway.
In most instances, high speed movement of true mass-transportation vehicles on the surface is impossible because of interference from other traffic using the same arteries.
The cost usually involved for suitable private rights-of-way on the surface would be prohibitive. A subway, of course, provides the private right-of-way and eliminates the hindrance of movement from competing traffic.
It is, therefore, an admirable solution in all respects, except that of cost. Very few, if any communities can support this burden even when the population served is very dense and riding relatively uniform throughout a large part of the day.
When both surface and sub-surface solutions are unavailable, the only resort is to go above the surface…
Starting from the elevated, the problem is to strip away its objectionable features and improve its better ones with the aid of modern technical progress. Monorail is the resulting answer.”
