April 26, 2012
Public Transportation Transformation in Southern California and the Environmental and Health Problems it has Caused
Los Angeles once had a thriving public transportation system, mainly of electric streetcars owned and operated by the Pacific Electric Company. Pacific Electric’s trains branched out from the heart of Los Angeles for a radius of 75 miles to San Fernando, San Bernardino, and Santa Ana making (at the time) the world’s largest interurban electric railway system (see Pacific Electric Railway picture for details). Snell argues Pacific Electric is responsible for the manner in which Los Angeles is geographically sprawled today. The electric railways were first constructed in 1911, and it “established traditions of suburban living long before the automobile arrived” (Snell).
In 1940, General Motors (GM) purchased $100 million worth of portions of the Pacific Electric system under the auspices of Pacific City Lines (a bus company made up of GM and Standard Oil of California). In 1944, GM and Standard Oil gave American City Lines (also an affiliate of GM) to motorize Los Angeles, whereby American City Lines purchased Los Angeles Railway (the local electric streetcar system), scrapped the electric transit cars, tore down power transmission lines, took out tracks, and established a system of buses. These buses were specifically built by GM and ran on Standard Oil (Snell).
GM had the ability to do this because of its serious influence throughout the United States. At the time, there were the “Big Three” car companies: GM, Chrysler, and Ford. GM, however, had by far the most power of them all. Snell argues Chrysler and Ford depended greatly on GM for supply of various parts that were crucial to their automobiles. GM, Ford, and Chrysler at the time annually contributed around $14 million to lobbyists for promotion of automotive transportation; their leading rivals could only afford about $1 million to lobby for rail transit. The magnitude of sales, the number of American employees, government revenue from corporate taxes, and the almost monopoly the Big Three had, enabled them to levy serious political influence. The Big Three saw public transportation as standing in their way of selling cars – each public transportation vehicle held up to 50 spots per trip that could otherwise have purchased automobiles (Snell). It makes sense then for the Big Three to levy their power to move the United States to personal automobiles.
GM also had built a solid grasp on city bus production. Seeing as both their cars and the buses ran on diesel fuel, it was an easy transition for them. In the 1920s, when the automobile market was saturated, GM expanded into other types of transportation, mainly city buses. Snell states “Beginning in 1932, [GM] undertook the direct operation and conversion of interurban electric railway and local electric streetcar and trolley bus systems into city bus operations.” GM formed an agreement with Greyhound Bus Corporation, putting many GM executives onto Greyhounds Board of Directors, and aiding the Greyhound Bus Corporation financially; until 1948, GM was the single largest shareholder in the Greyhound Corporation (Snell). In 1928, Greyhound announced its intention to convert commuter rail operations to intercity bus services. In 1936, GM together with Greyhound, Standard Oil, Firestone Tire, and a parts supplier come together to make National City Lines (intercity bus transportation). By 1939, GM and Greyhound had been successful in converting electric streetcar lines to National City Bus Lines in Pennsylvania, New York, St. Louis, among others (Snell).
Interestingly enough, GM realizes in the 1950s they make more money by selling cars than buses; 10 times more to be exact (Snell). Buses also have higher operating costs due to the fact that “diesel buses have 28 percent shorter economic lives, 40 percent higher operating costs, and 9 percent lower productivity than electric buses” (Snell). Thus, GM actually had an incentive to decrease bus ridership. Buses, however, are noisy, produce diesel smoke, and slower than electric rail cars. Thus, Snell argues, the move to diesel buses may have actually created a long-term effect of selling more GM cars; the public transportation was no longer a desirable option, so people purchased personal automobiles.
Slater, however, contradicts Snell’s argument. Slater claims buses would have replaced streetcars, regardless of GM’s intervention. He argues by 1944 bus lines were already carrying as many passengers as electric streetcars (58). In addition, he states, Pacific Electric also had a bus operations for public transit as well. However, he misses the point that the urban sprawl of Los Angeles was created by the electric railway system, thus it was perfectly suited to be dependent on it.
Regardless of which side one takes in the controversy, in 20/20 hindsight, it is clear public electric streetcar transportation would have most likely been the healthier option for the residents of Los Angeles. Traffic congestion and the number of cars on Los Angeles freeways and streets causes a serious amount of pollution that is damaging to human and environmental health.
Los Angeles is one of the largest cities in the nation in terms of population, all of who need transportation. Transportation, however, encourages further development and settlement of people, as we saw with the direct correlation between urban sprawl and the extension of the Pacific Electric railway system. This extension can have positive influences on the economy due to the growth of business and transportation of goods, but comes with a cost. Freeways have a direct impact on the human and their environment ranging from human health concerns to the disruption of ecological communities.
The construction of freeways can displace residents and small business owners. Local communities fight against freeways near their homes because it can bring down property values from the noise, air pollution and overall loss of a certain quality of life. Freeways can drastically alter the native landscape and ecological community. The loss of habitat land for wildlife can have a direct impact on the ecosystem and alter the genetic make up of a species due to the separation. This can result in a loss of biodiversity, susceptibility to disease and extinction. The construction of many freeways has resulted in a loss of wetlands and/or the contamination of waterways essential to a community’s water supply; ultimately contributing to the decline in water quality in our oceans through surface water run off. Freeways have a direct impact on air quality and mobile air pollution contributing to climate change, smog and the overall air quality of that region. All these factors play a role in why stakeholders vehemently fight for there rights to bee heard in the transportation planning process.
An example of stakeholder involvement in transportation planning, specifically in regards to a freeways environmental impact on the surrounding region, is the I-710 highway that connects the two largest ports in the world, Long Beach and Los Angeles, to the rest of Southern California. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles import 40% of all U.S. goods. Due to mass movement of goods and an increasing amount of traffic due to the high volume, environmental and health challenges facing the area are high. In 2005 the I-710 Corridor Project Study was commissioned to look at the challenges and ways to improve traffic congestion and enhance the quality of life for residents and communities of the surrounding area. The findings of this report were staggering. Los Angeles has attempted to improve and reduce the environmental and health risks demonstrated in the findings.
The I-710 passes through 15 communities with 1 million residents; 70% of these residents are minority, low-income communities. These communities persistently exceed national air quality standards, which is due to the mass transit from the ports to the rest of the state and country. One small example is diesel emissions, the report stated, caused 2,000 premature deaths.
In 2009, the American Lung Association identified Los Angeles as the most polluted city in the nation from ozone and particulate levels. Besides improving traffic congestion through the possible widening of lanes, building tunnels, elevated ramps and other infrastructural development the city must all take into consideration the needs of the already damaged health of the communities. As mentioned earlier there are a number of stakeholders within this type of project and for the past 3 years the city has been trying to work with the communities and local organizations to identify pollution problems and resources to solve these problems. This is an ongoing concern and while currently the focus is on the I-710, these problems are related to all highways.
This post was written by Jasmine Davis, ’12 who is graduating this spring with a BA in Environmental Studies, and Elise Fabro who is graduating this spring with a double major in Environmental Studies & Political Science, and she is pursuing a progressive Master’s in Environmental Studies.
Works Cited
Environmental Justice: Los Angeles Area Environmental Enforcement Collaborative | Pacific Southwest, Region 9 | US EPA.” US Environmental Protection Agency. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. http://www.epa.gov/region9/ej/enforcement
Goffman, Ethan. “Highways and Environmental Impact Issues.” CSA. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/ern/05apr
Slater, Cliff. “General Motors and the Demise of Streetcars.” Transportation Quarterly51.3 (1997): 45-66. Print.
Snell, Bradford C. “A Market Structure as the Determinant of Industry Conduct and Performance.” American Ground Transport. CarBusters, Mar. 2001. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. http://www.worldcarfree.net/resources/freesources/American.htm.
I’ve always wondered why public transportation is not more integrated into such a large city supporting such a large population. I enjoyed reading the background and history of LA’s public transportation system and how it transformed in the earlier years due to General Motor interests. Also, after doing a good deal of research on the Port of LA and the Port of Long Beach for my own blog post, I also found that the transformation of goods across the region relies highly on highways and trucks rather than rail. Reliance on trucks and highways creates challenges for the surrounding neighborhoods because these trucks use high exhaust diesel engines. These exhaust diminishes air quality throughout the surrounding community and create health hazards, mainly for children and senior residents.
I found this blog post to be very interesting and particularly informative. I was unaware of Los Angeles’s expansive public transportation system that primarily consisted of electric streetcars that were owned and run by the Pacific Electric Company. I also find Snell’s argument that it contributed to the sprawled out nature of Los Angeles today to be convincing. I think that is unfortunate that GM, Ford, and Chrysler were able to pull their resources and turn Los Angeles into the automobile dependent city that it is today. Los Angeles is currently in desperate need of better public transportation. The city has become so congested that it takes forever to get anywhere and the air quality is being compromised. If we hope to ever return to a city where the people of Los Angeles can get around, significant efforts need to be made in the planning sector. There is a need to create a more bike friendly environment in Los Angeles and pursue ideas such as bike sharing programs. There is also the need for more effective mass transit systems. The reason that it is so hard to get any of these things done is because of the way planning works. There are a handful of great ideas out there but they lack sufficient funding and political support. Plans to improve our public transportation system can only become a reality if there is enough money and political support. After looking online I found LA’s 30/10 Initiative to be a promising idea. As its name implies, it aims to complete 12 mass transit projects in a period of ten years, rather than 30. This would not only greatly increase and improve transportation options in Los Angeles but it would also help our economy by creating jobs and improve the areas air quality.
It’s interesting that Pacific Electric’s streetcars helped to shape Los Angeles because it has become a city in which public transportation is largely lacking. Because Los Angeles was built with thriving public transportation, the electric streetcars, it is sad that those forms of transportation were lost to a sprawling city and surplus of cars. The three largest automobile companies were able to buy their popularity, and the city of L.A. basically went along with it.
It’s both frustrating and intriguing reading about Los Angeles’s past when the people who shaped the city didn’t take into account the sustainability of development. Because Los Angeles was built out instead of up, the city is neither environmentally sustainable nor sustainable in terms of continued development. General Motors played a big role in converting our dominant forms of transportation from electric streetcars to diesel-fueled buses to cars. While Los Angeles’s issues with air pollution and traffic can’t be attributed to just one company, GM seems to have been one of the biggest contributors.
It is unfortunate how many cities, especially Los Angeles, have looked to expanding highways to solve their car overpopulation problem. Common sense would say that if we expand the highway system there would be less traffic, but that is only a temporary solution. Soon enough you have even more cars on the road that fill up the new highways. City planners have realized that a better solution is public transportation. Even though this whole problem is innate because of the structure of the greater Los Angeles area, solutions can be found apart from expanding highways. Like Jasmine mentioned, highways encourage even more sprawl, affect human health, and affect the environment.
To solve the problem what we really have to do is condense cities and towns so cars are less of a necessity, like in Manhattan, NY. But until then, the best and most plausible solution for the moment is to build less highways and increase public transportation so people are encouraged to stay more local and not travel large distances across Los Angeles.
This is a great topic! Transportation has really been at the center of all Los Angeles development and many of our problems, both economic and environmental, up until the present time. Certainly times are improving with regards to public transportation options, as was demonstrated with the recent opening of the Expo Line adjacent to campus. But there is no denying the decades of turmoil and the patterns caused because of the car- especially L.A.’s infamous sprawl. We talked about earlier in the semester that flooding increased due to development and increased paving, which of course resulted in increased runoff. The Army Corps of Engineers have since conquered that problem, but we also need to realistically face the other issues that both of you mentioned in the post regarding air pollution. Just like everything else we have learned about semester, it seems that this is another circumstance where we need to do something wrong and face the very real, very grave consequences before we decide on healthier choices, for ourselves and the environment, and reduce our dependence on the automobile.
This was a great blog post! The information about the history of urban development in LA was spot-on what I had learned in another Geology quest lecture. It is also interesting to mention a commonly unknown fact- the same automobile companies that were influential transitioning from electric to oil, were also major behind-the-scene investors in the building of the LA Port. They knew eventually the oil in LA would not be sufficient in supply for the booing population, so they figured it would only mean more monster profits if they opened a gateway where more of it can come in. Unfortunately, profit-crazed companies do not take into account the environmental effects of their actions, or else we would have seen a completely more sustainable LA. Imagine that!
I am glad that our blog now includes a post on public transportation. I first learned about the Pacific Electric Railway in Cahn’s Economics class Junior year – ENST 387. We learned about the railroad’s success, and then it’s downfall with the increasing power of GM and the movement of people out into the suburbs. Thank you, Jasmine and Elise, for going into more depth on this subject. Not only did I enjoy reading it and learning more about this subject, but I think the history of public transportation in Los Angeles is something that everyone should know more about. We all get frustrated with traffic and USC students who don’t have cars are often stuck in our fast-food island of a neighborhood.
I am happy to say that the new Expo line just opened this past weekend. On Saturday April 28 USC hosted the opening events for the new metro line. Additionally rider fares were waived for the first weekend it was open. The new line can take USC students west to La Cienaga (where Target is!) and north to downtown. The line also connects to the existing Metro lines in downtown and gives easy access to Hollywood through the red line, Pasadena through the Gold line, and the all useful Central Station. The future plans for the Expo line are to expand to Culver City in the next year and then go all the way to Santa Monica in the next three years. This new expansion will really connect Los Angeles – Santa Monica, to Culver City, to USC, to downtown – finally Los Angeles residents will be able to travel around the hugely spread out city centers in a rapid and cheap manner.
After what happened almost a century ago with GM’s influence on the Pacific Electric Railway system, it’s exciting for me to see the city of Los Angeles revitalizing the public transportation system. Hopefully the new Expo line will make traveling around the city more manageable for the people that do not have cars. However, I see a problem with converting car-users to be non-car-users. As much as the new line is amazing and connects downtown to the other parts of LA, I think there needs to be a cultural shift away from the use of cars. One of the token symbols of Los Angles is traffic (and cars), so I think it will be hard to wean the public off of controlling their own transportation. As much as people hate traffic, they love to be able to leave whenever they want and go anywhere conveniently. Unfortunately, I think there needs to be incentives to get people to start using the metro instead of their cars. Maybe subsidized rider-tickets, or even a PSA comparing travel times. There could be commercials showing a frustrated driver behind the wheel, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, and then flip to a relaxed commuter on the train reading the newspaper, or getting other work done.
Overall, I think the new line is exciting and necessary, but I don’t think the Metro will maximize it’s success until it penetrates the car-user segment. And to do this I believe some type of educational piece is necessary.
It’s enlightening to read about the relationships between big businesses and policy. In a way, it is a patron-client relationship where one further’s the other’s agenda. Some may accuse it of being a corrupt venture where the public’s best interest really isn’t at the heart of the discussions. The Big Three is alive and (less) well today, but rather than merely hindering public transportation efforts, they’ve also been fighting federal fuel economy standards to ensure they can continue selling us those big inefficient vehicles from which they made all their early money. Luckily for (most of?) us, the regulators won, and fuel economy standards have increased.
An additional factor related to automobile pollution is its distribution. Environmental justice reports indicate that many truck stops and residential areas beside freeways affect minority and poorer communities more so than their more affluent neighbors. We need to work towards reducing the vulnerability of those who can’t protect themselves from some of the negative effects of mobile pollution. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are a step in the right direction, however it doesn’t do much for big trucks!
I agree with user “Addie Rowe” that it’s interesting — if not downright paradoxical — that Los Angeles’ contemporary sprawl issues predominantly stem from a history of robust train and light rail use. The Pacific Electric railway system essentially subsidized the creation of these far-flung suburban communities, because commuting to and from urban centers would have been substantially more difficult without them. In the years since the removal of the tracks, however, too much has changed about the development of the region and the cost of re-implementing the necessary infrastructure would be far too costly to make subway or light rail viable transit options. Matthew Cahn, a professor of ENST-387, the course Nina makes reference to in a previous comment, described Los Angeles’ lack of major thoroughfares as the primary reason that rail and subway are no longer feasible. Where these densely populated corridors do exist, however, like along Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, buses are frequent and reliable. But Los Angeles has too few of these major corridors to justify many new rail projects; because of the circuitous and haphazard organization of the city, buses will likely be our most plausible public transportation option for many years to come.
As many have mentioned here, great blog! I am an LA resident and really never looked into the history behind LA’s past transportation system. I always new the basic idea, but not this in depth and this blog has encouraged me to look further into it going forward. I definitely agree that LA shouldn’t build anymore freeways because I don’t think it would actually help our congestion issues, I in no way harbor resentment for the current existing ones. The truth is LA is a massive, wealthy metropolis for a reason. People want to come to the city because there is so much in reach. In one day, if timed correctly, someone can lay out on the beach with beautiful mountains in the background and find themselves later in Big Bear ready to ski. Or they can mix their time between a city diverse in culture and hiking in the Angeles forest. There aren’t many places that extend these opportunities to people and it is LA’s freeways that allow it. Also, as anyone who has been to the Long Beach or San Pedro harbor has seen, there are hundreds of thousands of shipping containers coming in every week with products from all over the world. Products that people want and that increase their quality of life. And they don’t simply deliver to LA, those harbors are a source of goods for a significant portion of the country. The same goes in the reverse direction, American producers want to ship their goods to other markets, to do so requires getting them to the ports and to do that requires using the freeways. I understand railroads could potentially move these crates as well, but they could not take them directly to each destination, trucks would still be required. If you think traffic is bad with freeways, imagine traffic with only two to three lane streets and traffic signals!
That explains why Los Angeles’ public transportation is so inefficient to this day and it’s interesting to know that it could have been different. The organization of the city is no longer conducive to a rail system but massive infrastructure projects like the widening of freeways, tunnels and ramps to ease congestion are also not the solution. Although, buses may be the city’s only options the city needs to find a way to make routes faster and public transport in general more attractive to riders.
This could be a lesson to Los Angeles city planners and leaders to consider all factors before making major decisions that will impact the city in the future.
As much as mass transit is often touted as the solution to the environmental issues of the personal automobile, its important to consider that the public’s willingness to utilize it is just as import as its availability. Ridership is an important factor to consider how effective public transportation can be in mitigating the detrimental effects of alternative forms of transit. Its sad to see how the actions of GM may have made public transit less desirable, increasing the relative convenience of the personal automobile.
To make matters worse, it isn’t simply enough to make sure that the public transit is well utilized by the public. It has to be convenient enough that it subtracts from the usage of other forms of (dirtier) transportation. If it isn’t appealing enough to discourage people from using their cars (as opposed to simply encouraging people without cars to travel more) than public transit can actually add to the problem. Hopefully the opening the metro near SC will encourage students to actually drive less and decrease the negative effects of personal automobile use.
I never quite understood where the breakdown in public transportation infrastructure came about during the development of Los Angeles. I have lived in this city for the almost thirty consecutive years, in between I have lived in Chicago, San Diego, New York and have traveled to many places, to list a few: Paris, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Barcelona, London, Sydney, Tokyo and Istanbul. The reason why I mention all of these cities is because they are a few of the world’s largest and most developed cities and to facilitate their urbanized way of life they all have well established public transportation systems. Most of which were developed while the cities were urbanizing, if not fully than at least in part and then later revisited for completion. Yet, for whatever reason this is not the case with Los Angeles.
What made this even more unclear to me is that, as you mentioned in your blog, at one time Los Angeles had the world’s largest interurban electric railway system, which is what facilitated the urban sprawl of Los Angeles and was therefore was equipped to provide transportation to the city.
However, after further reading, and realizing that General Motors purchased much of Pacific Electric system scrapped most of the electric transit car system, and replacing it with busses, makes it rather clear why Los Angeles failed to secure a permanent public transit system during the height of urbanization. Once again we see how the greed of development and the power of the dollar was able to influence political decisions in early Los Angeles.
I find this blog post to be very informative on the situation of sustainable development in Los Angeles. I find it very interesting as both a native of Los Angeles and as someone who depends on public transportation such as the various Metro lines, that the topic of making Los Angeles a more sustainable city through more public transportation is one that is a good idea. However, I my experience, even if more public transportation is created, there is the issue of actually convincing the public to use the public transportation because many people still want to rely on their vehicles. I think in order to convince people to use public transportation, I think the main issues that need to be addressed are the flaws in Metro that prevent people from taking the bus such as time intervals in which they pick up passengers, the size of the buses to prevent over crowding, etc. It is only when issues like these are addressed is when people will start to be willing to take public transportation.