Los Angeles Motor Coach bus on Wilshire Boulevard.

Did you know that Wilshire Boulevard is the only street in Los Angeles to have surface-level rail banned from operating on it (although not under it) between MacArthur Park and Beverly Hills? Early 20th Century elites who built their mansions near the boulevard may have been LA’s first “NIMFYs” (Not in My Front Yard). The clanging bells and hoi polloi who rode streetcars were not welcomed on Wilshire. With street railway out of the question, Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway formed a bus company in 1923, the Los Angeles Motorbus Company. It ran double-decker buses along Wilshire Boulevard … quietly, we assume.