Los Angeles County Metro Transportation Authority Library and Archive

02/28/2024

Here’s a Metro system map from 2017 that also shows future possible Measure M transit projects. What do you see?

01/30/2024

Some of our other new titles in the Metro Library.

01/12/2024

Excited for this new book for our collection: Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting in Los Angeles, by Metro’s own India Mandelkern. Published by . Congratulations, India!

08/23/2023

Our daily headlines are back -

News and information from Southern California and beyond     >>> Subscribe Now This Date in Los Angeles Transportation History >>> More This Date SoCal Fo…

08/18/2023

In May, 1923, Los Angeles voters passed a referendum asking for better transit in their rapidly growing city. Traffic congestion was out of control, and the streetcar lines only went so far. In res…

08/18/2023

Happy 100th birthday to LA's buses -

In May, 1923, Los Angeles voters passed a referendum asking for better transit in their rapidly growing city. Traffic congestion was out of control, and the streetcar lines only went so far. In res…

08/07/2023

Transit Briefs: MBTA, Montreal REM, OC Transpo, LA Metro (Metro Mobility Wallet)

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) Ashland Station will receive $2.5 million in repairs and improvements. Also, Montreal’s Reseau express metropolitain (REM) shuts down on first official day of service; OC Transpo is still unclear as to when LRT will resume service; and LA M...

08/04/2023

08/04/2023

Clean Transport: After Trying Hydrogen, German Rail Operator Picks Batteries+Grid

Hydrogen as an energy carrier plays always fail once spreadsheet jockeys are allowed to enter realistic numbers and compare to clear alternatives, instead of being constrained to fantasies about free hydrogen and delusions about batteries made of gold and platinum.

07/27/2023

Job opening: Sr. Mgr Policy, Research and Library Svcs

07/22/2023

Do you love LA's iconic historic street lights? Then this is the book for you: Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting in Los Angeles -

*This title is on pre-sale. Hardcover, 3-piece binding6.75" x 9.5" | 236 pages Los Angeles is known for many things: its traffic jams, its taco trucks, the palm trees, the sunshine. Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting in Los Angeles explores one of its most overlooked design legacies...

07/19/2023

“Transit systems should adapt to the moment.”

07/19/2023

Mexico goes for passenger rail service in a big way: major line to open in December

Tren Maya, also known as Mayan Train, is scheduled to open by the end of December this year. This major 965 mile Mexican intercity railway project will traverse through five states in the Yucatan Peninsula and culminates years of planning and funding roadblocks.  

07/19/2023

LA by Subway -

The newly expanded subway may not go everywhere, but for $5 a day it offers a gridlock-free way to get to plenty of great places.

07/13/2023

On the watershed rail-enabling 1970s ballot measure that you’ve probably never heard of:

We tend to think of Prop A (1980) and Prop C (1990) as the big guns that made LA’s public transportation system thinkable – the first two half cent tax increases that provided the funding needed to…

07/12/2023

The international version of APTA - UITP

The UITP Global Congress was in Barcelona in early June 2023. It has been a long journey to get to get to the 64th UITP Congress, with a number of postponements, and ultimately, the cancellation of the last Congress that was scheduled to be held in Melbourne due to the pandemic.

04/04/2023

https://www.tiktok.com//video/7217968488046923050?lang=en

From our first board meeting in 1993 to nine unique grand openings (Union Station East, the B, C, D, E, K and L rail lines and the G and J bus rapid lines), we've been busy over the past 30 years building more options for Angelenos to get around. A few nuances we couldn't squeeze into this thirty se...

02/17/2023

Today we’d like to honor another Black pioneer in L.A. transportation history: William E. “Bill” Wells (1862-1943). Mr. Wells is considered to be L.A. transit’s first Black employee.

Mr. Wells was born an enslaved person on April 4, 1862, in Civil War-era Springfield, Missouri. Mr. Wells and his family were moved to Texas when he was young, and one of his early childhood memories was witnessing Union soldiers and cavalry bands announcing the end of the Civil War in Texas. Around this time, the family made its way to Los Angeles.

Mr. Wells was originally hired as a janitor by Los Angeles Consolidated Electric (LACE) Railway in 1891, and was quickly promoted to Messenger for the railway company’s Treasury Department, where he carried financial documents between operations, headquarters, and the banks. Henry Huntington purchased the LACE Railway in 1898 and absorbed it into the Los Angeles Railway Company (LARy). And for a time Mr. Wells worked directly for Mr. Huntington.

After 48 years with the railway company, Mr. Wells retired on September 1, 1939. His retirement was announced in the Two Bells employee news magazine noting “William will be missed greatly by all his friends in the Railway who enjoyed his pleasant friendly manner, and with him we all send our best wishes…”

Mr. Wells passed away on April 13, 1943 at the age of 81. His obituary in the employee news magazine notes he was a member of the Masonic Lodge and that “one of his daily deeds was to hand out flowers to his friends, flowers he raised himself. This act alone personified the beauty of his character.”

You can read more about Mr. Wells and his extended family on metroprimaryresources.info.

02/06/2023

This Black History Month we’d like to celebrate one of Metro’s first Black pioneers: Arcola Philpott (1913-1991). Arcola not only broke the racial barrier as LA Railway’s first Black operator but she also broke the gender barrier as the system’s first female streetcar operator; that’s right, the first African-American “motorman” was a “motormanette.”

Arcola Ruffins was born on July 21, 1913. She married Robert Philpott and had two children, Ethel and Robert Jr. Mrs. Philpott was an accomplished pianist, spoke several languages, and before moving to LA, she performed research in the University of Chicago’s History Department.

Mrs. Philpott began working for LA Railway in 1944, working out of Division 5 driving the “F” line from 116th/South Vermont Ave. to Union Station. She lived at the corner of West Adams and Central, near the heart of the city’s Central Avenue jazz district.

Shortly after hiring Mrs. Philpott, LA Railway then hired its first Black motormen: (top, l-r) Louis S. Bernard, Percy B. Hill, W.B. Jones, W.S.A Weary, and, (not pictured) Hoyt Brown, Roosevelt Mills, Butler James Mitchell, E.M. Morris, and James Womack.

01/21/2023

This beautiful public wall mural in Altadena shows the old Pacific Electric funicular on Echo Mountain. And if you’re wondering was it really that steep, swipe left! The original image is from our historical image collections! You can see Beautiful Altadena in the image background.

12/16/2022

7th and Flower, downtown LA, sometime late 1950's. Los Angeles Transit Lines just as it transitions to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, streetcar and bus still sporting their LARy yellow car roots:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/metrolibraryarchive/52568163910

12/16/2022

We will be taking a break from publishing the daily transportation headlines, see y'all in the new year.

1896: 46-year-old Griffith J. Griffith presents Los Angeles with a gift of 3,015 acres of Rancho Los Feliz, valued at $300,000. “Colonel” Griffith wanted to create the largest park in …

12/14/2022

It’s that time of year again! Time to remember when the Los Angeles MTA once ran a candy cane streetcar and bus during the holiday season. .
The streetcar is the Holiday Candy Cane Car Type H4 (1950s). And the bus is the LAMTA Candy Cane Coach Bus no. 6416 (1960). .
Photos from the LA Metro Library & Archive Flickr stream.

11/28/2022

The Yellow Car and Los Angeles. Exhibit at Union Station. A collaboration between the Metro Transportation Library/Archive and Metro ART:

11/23/2022

Here’s Matt B., Director of the LA Metro Transportation Research Library & Archive, giving a short tour of Metro’s exhibit on the LA Railway’s “Yellow Car” system to some library and records staff. This amazing exhibit is currently on display in and was organized by .art.la in collaboration with the Metro Library.

You can see some of archival source material on display, including photographs, rail car plans, tickets and ephemera.

Image #5 shows the Descanso Funeral Car. That’s right a train funeral car that would service cemeteries along LA Railway lines, such as Inglewood Park Cemetery, Rosedale Cemetery, and Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights.

The exhibit will run through about April 2023.

05/24/2022

Congestion pricing? Free buses? Monorails? How L.A.’s next mayor could change your commute https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-24/los-angeles-mayor-race-transportation-streetcars-monorail-congestion-pricing

The city may be the nation's capital of car culture, but pressure is building to get more people out of their emission-spewing rides.