Metropolitan Coach Lines.

Biography / Administrative History

Metropolitan Coach Lines Company (MCL) was born out of the socio-economic changes that transformed many large American cities in the years following World War II. Postwar prosperity allowed Americans to indulge in the luxury of the automobile and freeways expanded to accommodate the new auto culture. Work and home were no longer necessarily coterminous and American city-life began to decentralize. This was particularly true in Los Angeles where, a 1955 report to the LAMTA noted, "the ratio of automobile ownership to population... is the highest of any comparable urban area in the world and in no other such area is so great dependence placed on the private automobile as the principle means of passenger transportation (Cloverdale and Colpitts, 1955: p.3)".

This change in American social geography had profound effects on Los Angeles' best-known transit operator, Pacific Electric Railway Company (PE). Faced with increased operating costs, decreased revenues, and falling passenger volume, PE moved to divest itself of its passenger services. Between March and October of 1953, Pacific Electric worked out a sales agreement with Jesse Haugh, who organized the Metropolitan Coach Lines bus company (see Series #3, Sale of Pacific Electric Records ). PE sold its real properties, motor coaches, fare boxes, furniture, office and shop equipment, operating rights, and rail passenger facilities to Haugh and his holding company, Western Transit Systems, for $7,206,634 on March 10, 1953. Because PE agreed to provide MCL with free use of its remaining passenger rail facilities (cars, tracks, overhead, and stations) for two years, part of the agreement stated that "Buyer [Haugh] and Railway [PE] will prosecute diligently and vigorously all such applications so as to replace rail passenger service with motor coach service in the shortest practicable time after closing date (Agreement March 10, 1953, Metropolitan Coach Lines Records, 01-DPGTL, Dorothy Payton Grey Transportation Library)".

In 1957, recognizing the need for the coherent development of a mass transit system for the Los Angeles area, the California State Legislature authorized the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (LAMTA) to acquire and operate all mass transit lines of Los Angeles County. Thus, in 1958 LAMTA bought MCL and its subsidiary, Asbury Rapid Transit, for $33 million dollars. With this sale came the end of MCL and of private ownership and operation of transportation in Los Angeles.

List of Abbreviations BRC - Brotherhood of Railway Clerks BRT - Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen LACMTA - Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority LAMTA - Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority MCL - Metropolitan Coach Lines PE - Pacific Electric Railway Company PUC - Public Utilities Commission

List of Sources