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Where Suspended Railroads and Elevated Highways Meet: Los Angeles Traffic, 1939

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Here we go: I unearthed a beautiful if not a very good solution to the traffic congestion problems in 1939 Los Angeles. It is a rare, self-published work of what seems to have received almost no attention, suggesting a combination of suspended railways and elevated roads to free up more space on the streets of L.A. It is the work of Alphonso Davino (1888-1965?) who wrote A Brief analysis of the Traffic Congestion Problem and its Economical Solution1 and presented it to city planners in 1939.  Mr. Davino had an entire system of transportation, though he seems to have luck in getting the ideas across a wider population in only occasional and obscure publications. 

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I can not find very much at all for Mr. Davino, though he is a patent holder for at least three associated designs/ideas dating from 1926 to 1950. [Semirigid Suspended Railway Structures, 1607875, (1923); Aerial Railway Apparatus patent 2234487 (1943); Suspended Rapid Transit System 2781001A (1950), (suspended vehicles with self-propelled vehicles).] I also found a reference to a suspended transportation system of some sort offered by him through his business “Aerial Apparatus” of Los Angeles (in the Mining Journal, vol 110, 6 November 1920, p 910).

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