Standard Tuesday youtubing brought me face-to-face with a six-month-old Youtube account known as metrolibrarian. Metrolibrarian archives 51 videos related to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and a lot of this is solid transit gold: bilingual public service announcements with the Dodgers, audio/visual employee disciplinary music videos, proposals for savagely impractical transit projects. Let’s get to the highlights and explore a video history of public transportation!

This first one has local ties, it’s about the Blue Line. There’s a combination of shots from the grand opening and promotional footage for the—at the time—brand new light rail system. Note the unhappy car drivers toward the beginning, the enthusiasitc christenings synchronized with the drum hits, and the total lack of narration.

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Second is promoting The Orange Line, which isn’t actually a train but a large “Metroliner” bus that operates sort of like our Blue Line light rail system, but with tires and no overhead cable. The video follows the story of a group of crudely computer animated children who take the Red Line subway to visit their friend Gerald but get stuck in North Hollywood until a friendly bus intervenes! Note the weird but happy song performed by the CGI kids at the end.

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Next we have a pair of videos that were/are intended for Metro bus maintenance workers who either missed or came in late to work, almost entirely set to “rap.”