Reading about Union Station in L.A. It opened in 1939, but the city had plans for a central train station as early as 1905.
Railroad companies were competing and didn’t want to share tracks or a common station. They fought so hard, it took 20 years and two supreme court hearings before they could agree with the city to have a shared station. And by that time in 1939, people were all about cars and that new thing that was faster than anything before, planes.
A whole generation started paying taxes between the start of negotiations and when they concluded. For a train station. Wild AF!
When I hear people in their 20s today talking about “car culture this, car culture that, ban all cars boo” I’m just like “trains kind of suck, stop being dogmatic also pettiness has been ruining everything since forever”. Then they order an Uber or jump on a scooter, zip through traffic with that thousand-yard scooter stare, and I shake my head.