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This is a map of the old Red Car system, based on a 1912 original from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection. Yes, it really went all the way to San Pedro, Santa Monica, Huntington Beach and the like. At the time, the Red Cars weren't exactly popular, because they were owned by Henry Huntington, a classic early 20th century robber baron. The Red Cars, fundamentally, were meant to support Huntington's real estate ventures, and Huntington had no qualms about using old fashioned corruption to get his way.
For example, this meant that Huntington had inside knowledge of the plan to take the Owens Valley's water, and use it to provide water to the San Fernando Valley. In 1904, Huntington joined a real estate syndicate to quietly buy up the worthless semi-desert of the Valley, before the L.A. Aqueduct was public knowledge. Once the L.A. Aqueduct became a reality and got voter approval, he connected the Valley to DTLA using Red Car lines and began developing the land around the stations. When he sold his stake in the syndicate in 1912, Huntington had turned an 866% profit.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, there really was no practical alternative to the Red Cars, because cars were extremely expensive, and the bus and truck hadn't become practical yet. Because of this, the Red Cars held a virtual monopoly over transport of both freight and passengers in all Southern California. It should not come as a surprise that they acted like monopolistic dicks during this time, and they quickly developed a reputation for crummy service and cutthroat business tactics. When the bus and car became a reality, Angelenos were eager to get out from under the thumb of the Red Cars. On the one hand, the Culver City Bus and the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, founded in the 1920s, were both attempts to challenge the Red Cars as transit. Once cars became affordable to the masses, Angelenos bought them in huge numbers, and by 1925 Angelenos had the most cars per-capita in the United States.
Angelenos were loath to spend tax dollars to support the Red Car system when it needed the money. The Red Cars requested public financial support to convert the old lines into modern rapid transit in 1926 and 1948; both times, the proposals got voted down. Instead, Angelenos invested in freeways from 1940 onward, and we all know how that turned out.
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