The Pacific Electric Red Cars were legendary in prewar Los Angeles part of a 1,500-mile streetcar network that enabled the city to grow before everyone had sixteen cars and a Mike Brady-designed ranch house. A few years back they restored one of the old streetcars and used it as a model to construct replicas which run up and down the San Pedro waterfront from the cruise ship terminal down to 22nd Street. But they're not all that's left of public transit in LA, in fact, there's been a massive push out here to increase the system's efficiency. And amazingly, in Southern California — land of the auto-centric solipsist — it's actually starting to work.
L.A., Long Ruled by Cars, Becoming a Transit Leader [Washington Post]
Related:
Are Toll Roads the Solution to California's Transit Woes? [Internal]