CALIFORNIA DYING.

Seventy years ago, what we understand these days as U.S. Highway 101 through the Cahuenga Pass looked like this.

Huntington Library image retrieved from Calisphere.

The investor-owned Pacific Electric Railway was there first, then the Good Roads Movement made their claims on the taxpayers, and this 1952 infrastructure (before Chicago built a yard of track in the expressway medians) is now gone.  As the song says, L.A. is a great big freeway.  Follow that link for additional images and commentary, including a movie of those suburban-style PCCs in the median.  As the post notes, there's no way the road socialists wanted a privately owned rapid transit line in their expressways.  Perhaps they'll change their thinking, as this right-of-way would have been perfect for transmission lines to bring electricity to the suburbs in sufficient volume to charge those electric cars Californians are being encouraged to buy and discouraged from recharging!

That same site also features a photograph of the older center-entrance "Hollywood" cars in the median.