Imagine a Los Angeles without gridlock, and without the road rage (or at the very least less road rage).
Smithsonian Magazine writes that Kelker and Deleuw, two transportation planners who authored a rapid transit plan for Chicago, also mapped out a rapid transit system for Los Angeles in 1925.
The plan would have included a 140-mile system of elevated rails and subways, which locals were split on, but eventually rejected. While LA does have a light rail system today, it's only 98.5 miles. The city still can't shake its reputation for being the US city with the worst traffic.
"The ills of the automobile hadn’t yet sunk in," Sam Lubell, author of Never Built: Los Angeles told Smithsonian. "Just like with the parks, they [those aligned against the transit plan] didn’t quite understand how uncontrolled the city would get."