Back in 1914, when this photo was captured, Los Angeles hadn’t yet become the city built for the private automobile. For most people, streetcars were the way to get around town and in this shot we can see that “rush hour” back then meant a scene similar to this one: Around a dozen Los Angeles Railway streetcars are lined up on East 7th St in downtown Los Angeles. They’re all waiting to cross Main St, which was also a busy downtown street. I hope nobody sitting in those streetcars was in a hurry to get home. (Source: Water & Power Associates)
This is roughly how that view looked in January 2022. No rush hours in this part of LA these days!
You’ll notice there is dual guage trackage down there. City cars ran on the narrow guage, while the interurbans had gone over to the wider standard guage. PE used this 7th Street line to access the Surface Yard area behind the Main Street Terminal, but slightly further below Los Angeles Street. (They would go in and out via 7th, but some maps show a 6th Street connection which is where one of the primary lines ran.) Before the viaduct was built, many cars had to run along city streets to navigate their way out. In the distance we can see two tall smokestacks…probably at the Los Angeles Railway’s car shops down by Alameda. (The growing PE system moved their shops further south from the city center towards the Torrance area.)
One of the smokestacks can be seen in the distance next to the shops in the colorized 1899 image found in this entry: https://martinturnbull.com/2015/10/16/los-angeles-city-hall-at-night-circa-1951/