PAUL GRAY HOFFMAN

摘要

Paul Hoffman was not a traffic engineer. He was an automobile salesman and a very good one. Born of modest means in a Chicago suburb, young Paul left college after one year to pursue his fortune selling cars, first in Chicago and then in booming Los Angeles. And he did very well. Upon his return from army service in 1919, he purchased the Los Angeles retail division of Studebaker Corporation and was on his way to his first million. Los Angeles was growing quickly in the early 1920s, and so were its traffic problems. Civic leaders banded together to form the Traffic Commission of the City and County of Los Angeles, under Paul Hoffman's chairmanship, to seek answers. They privately funded a study by leading city planners to devise a major traffic street plan and another study to rationalize the city's 134-page hodgepodge of traffic regulations.