Finding aid for the Friends 4 Expo Transit records 7145
Bo Doub
USC Libraries Special Collections
2023 April
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, California 90089-0189
specol@usc.edu
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Friends 4 Expo Transit records
Creator:
Friends 4 Expo Transit
Creator:
Seal, Kathy
Identifier/Call Number: 7145
Physical Description:
0.88 Linear Feet
2 boxes
Date (inclusive): 2000-2002
Language of Material:
English
.
Container: 1
Container: 2
Records of the Friends 4 Expo Transit advocacy group created and collected by Kathy Seal, a longtime community organizer who
founded Friends 4 Expo in 2000 to fight for a light rail Expo Line along a right of way in Los Angeles running from Exposition
Boulevard into Santa Monica. Friends 4 Expo (also known as Friends4Expo and F4E) emphasized the environmental benefit of clean,
speedy, high-capacity light rail, and sought to overcome opposition to a passenger line--principally from homeowners' groups--by
presenting slide shows to schools, senior centers, churches, a mosque, chambers of commerce, Rotary clubs, Neighborhood Councils,
unions, and neighborhood groups flanking the right of way. Members of the group gathered thousands of signatures at farmers'
markets, neighborhood festivals, outdoor malls, and city events. Friends 4 Expo lobbied Los Angeles, Culver City, and Santa
Monica city council members, and members of the Los Angeles Metro board. The activists reached out to community newspapers
and met with the
Los Angeles Times editorial board. Two community colleges endorsed the project, as did the Music Center and the University of Southern California.
The records document the efforts and activities of Friends 4 Expo Transit that led, in June 2001, to unanimous approval by
the Metro board to construct the first half of the Expo Line as light rail from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and, by
2008, to funding that would clear the way for the second half of the Expo Line's construction. Types of material in the Friends
4 Expo Transit records include fact sheets, notes and agendas from meetings, press materials and clippings, files relating
to endorsements, and correspondence.
Some of the text in this note was adapted from content published on the Friends 4 Expo website in June of 2023.
Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special
Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Kathy Seal, September 29, 2022.
[Box/folder no. or item name], Friends 4 Expo Transit records, Collection no. 7145, Regional History Collection, Special Collections,
USC Libraries, University of Southern California
Subjects and Indexing Terms
California, Southern -- Transportation -- Archival resources
Environmentalism -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Political activists -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Social advocacy -- California -- Archival resources
Transportation -- California -- Los Angeles -- Planning -- Archival resources
Transportation -- Public relations -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Administrative records
Agendas (administrative records)
Clippings
Correspondence
Notes
Press releases
Friends 4 Expo Transit -- Archives
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- Archives
Seal, Kathy -- Archives