They were stacked atop one another, rusting on Terminal Island in Long Beach Harbor, waiting to become scrap metal. The sad red, yellow, and green carcasses of a once great transportation system had been killed by the onslaught of car culture. Abandoned, forgotten, eventually destroyed, the trolleys haunted old silver screen classics and the fading memories of older Angelenos, relics of a bygone era lost to progress.

By the mid 1970s, progress had turned a sharp corner. Los Angeles became synonymous with smog and traffic, eventually as famous for road rage and gridlocked freeways as Tinseltown and that warm California sun.

Transportation planners looked to the past to plot a way forward. Those dead trolleys were the heart of what was once the world’s largest electric transit system. At the turn of the century Pacific Electric cobbled together a regional network spanning more than 1,000 miles of rail. Their iconic Red Cars connected bedroom communities like Pomona and Glendale to the bustling urban core. Meanwhile city dwellers rode Yellow Cars, a comprehensive streetcar system operated by Los Angeles Railway. Just like the London Tube, Paris Metro or New York Subway, the trams showcased the sophistication and technology of a world class metropolis.

Car #3126 on the P line at its eastern terminal, the loop at Rowan and Dozier, c. 1957. (Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

It was the sophistication and technology coming out of Detroit that brought the trolleys to a halt. Ridership of the Red Cars faltered during the 1930s and never recovered. Freeways were built between L.A. and once distant hamlets, streets were widened to accommodate more cars. Routes were shortened, then cut altogether, or were taken over by buses. The last Red Car line, between Long Beach and Los Angeles, died in 1961. Even transportation inside the urban core was suffering. Yellow Cars shared the blacktop with taxicabs, delivery trucks and everyone else. Locked onto rails the streetcars were stuck in traffic if they weren’t causing backups themselves. By 1963, buses had completed their takeover of city streets.