Monorail Proposal, 1937

Fifty years after the monorail was first suggested as the answer to Los Angeles' traffic woes in 1887 (see the post), the idea came up again.

January 21, 1937: Joseph B. Strauss, designer of the Golden Gate Bridge (which was still under construction) met with about 40 business leaders in Los Angeles to propose an elevated rapid transit system for the city. Good ideas just never die . . . but in Los Angeles, they never quite come to fruition either.

It all looked pretty promising for awhile, until, as you know, nothing happened.

That's why this statue of Strauss is in San Francisco, not L.A.