How Los Angeles Rejected the Monorail

In the mid-20th century, Los Angeles came surprisingly close to building a sprawling monorail transit system. This documentary provides an in-depth study of how the idea developed, the problems it promised to solve, and the reasons it was ultimately never built.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:47 - Chapter I: Half-Baked, Hair-Brained Schemes
5:52 - Chapter II: Red-Taped Inertia
11:27 - Chapter III: A Deadly Competitor
18:38 - Chapter IV: Highways in the Sky
24:44 - Chapter V: Giving Audiences to Everything
29:32 - Chapter VI: A Dark-Ages Monstrosity
34:32 - Chapter VII: An Elevated Nightmare
41:16 - Chapter VIII: So Much Irresponsible Hogwash
47:24 - Epilogue & Credits

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Music playlist:
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Further reading:

Monorail Feasibility Study (1954)
Explored whether monorail was economically feasible as a transit system for LA.
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Transit Corridor Study (1959)
Analyzed commuter traffic patterns along 12 potential transit corridors, recommending four of these for further study (Covina, Long Beach, Santa Monica and Reseda).
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Transit System Study (1960)
Analyzed numerous types of transit systems, recommending three for future study (conventional rail, suspended monorail and saddlebag monorail).
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Transit System Recommendation & Detailed Route Study (1960)
Presented the recommendation for a rubber-tired metro rail system, and detailed the placement and design of the transit routes & stations.
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Backbone Route Study (1961)
Presented the recommendation for a steel-wheeled metro rail system as well as the shorter Backbone Route.
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Goodell Airport Line Proposal (1962)
Presented the plans to build a monorail line between downtown and LAX.
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...

Alweg Monorail Proposal (1963)
Presented the plans to build a transit network of three monorail lines.
http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGT...