The 1933 Light Rail Rapid Transit Plan for Los Angeles

In 1933 the Central Business District Association in Los Angeles hired noted transit engineer Donald Baker to develop a rapid transit plan that could be put into the hopper for possible federal funding under the New Deal public works program.

This effort came in the wake of the failure of the city to adopt the comprehensive city transit plan of 1925 (mandated by the new city charter that had been approved that year). That plan had been developed for the city and county of L.A. by noted Chicago transit consultant Robert Kelker. The 1925 plan had been ambitious in that in included an exhaustive study at all levels of transit service, and proprosed enhancements to the existing streetcar, bus, and light rail systems, as well as a new heavy rail system, mainly based on elevated railways. The Kelker plan was defeated partly due to its high cost, and partly due to a campaign against elevated railways, orchestrated by the Los Angeles Times.

Faced with economic hard times and the failure of the previous plan, Baker developed a very modest proposal that leveraged the existing investment in the Pacific Electric light rail system. The key elements of the plan were:

A 5-mile long 3-track subway and open cut line from a connection with the existing PE Santa Monica, Redondo Beach and Venice lines at Vineyard, to 10th and Figueroa Sts. (10th Street was later widened to become Olympic Blvd. in the late '30s. Vineyard is now called "Mid-City.")
A 1.25 mile long 4-track subway from 4th & Hill Sts to 10th & Figueroa
A one-mile long 2-track subway entry into downtown for the Pacific Electric San Gabriel Valley lines, from 4th & Hill Sts. to Union Station
A 4-mile long extension of the existing Pacific Electric elevated from Wall St. to Slauson Junction
An extension of the existing PE subway for 0.6 miles under Glendale Boulevard to Bellevue Dr. (next to Echo Park).

The most important component of this plan was the proposed Vineyard subway, which would have run under 8th Street through the Wilshire district from Harvard Blvd. (PE right of way) to Vermont, and then southeast under 10th Street (which was widened to become Olympic Boulevard in the late '30s) to Figueroa, through the Pico-Union distrct. (See the map below.)

This open cut section would have been built on a private right of way acquired by PE predecessor company Los Angeles Pacific in 1906. This right of way in the '30s was intact from Pico and Mullen to Irolo Ave (between 7th and 8th Streets), near Wilshire and Nomandie.

The total pricetag on the proposed infrastructure was $37 million. Baker proposed to finance this through a 30% grant from the federal government, together with a downtown assessment district, and rental revenue from the Pacific Electric (presumably derived from fare revenue). The plan was presented by the city and county governments of Los Angeles to the New Deal, but the feds denied the funding.

The following diagram shows the proposed elevated structure on the four-track-wide PE Watts-line right of way.

Proposed Elevated Structure on Watts Line

The next diagram on the left shows a cross-section of the downtown 4-track subway at a station mezzanine. Note the full height turnstiles and gates. The gates would be the kind that could be opened at night when there would be no station agent on duty. The diagram on the right shows a two-track subway at a station. It is interesting that the subway is so shallow there is no mezzanine. The assumption seems to be that fares would be collected on the trains.

Two track cut and cover subway

The next diagram shows a cross section of the proposed 3-track open cut on the right of way between 8th and Harvard and Vineyard.

Three track open cut

The next diagram shows a cross section of a 3-track tunnel section. This type of construction would have been used near Vermont Avenue.

Three track tunnel

The following shows the 1933 rapid transit plan in relation to population density in L.A. as of the 1940 census.

1933 Rapid Transit Plan