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[[File:1920_Sherman_Way_in_downtown_Owensmouth.jpg|thumbnail|left|275px|Sherman Way in downtown Owensmouth in 1920. Present day downtown Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley.]]
By 1920, the streets of Los Angeles’s central core were some of the most congested in the United States. Pedestrians, streetcars, trains and automobiles all competed for space on Los Angeles’s city streets and its leaders had struggled with numerous proposed solutions to relieve traffic. This paper will examine how Los Angeles reacted to its crammed streets and why they ultimately decided to depend on the automobile. Los Angeles’s response to paralyzing traffic fundamentally changed America’s streets because it served as a model for cities throughout the country. Instead of emphasizing mass transit and dense housing, other cities followed Los Angeles lead and promoted the automobile as the ultimate solution to congested urban cores.
