To further "sell" the public on the ETB concept, the RTD version of the trolleybus would have featured on-board batteries to allow the coaches to run without wires in visually sensitive areas and to turn corners and end-of-line loops without expensive overhead construction.
   Eleven routes were ultimately chosen and the engineering and real estate work was done for the lines' substations. Several manufacturers submitted preliminary bids on the coaches, but trolleybuses were not to be. The first line chosen to be electrified would have run through a residential neighbohood in the Los Feliz district and neighborhood opposition to the imagined dangers of Electro-Magnetic Field emmissions (EMFs) plus the supposed unsightly overhead wires created foes with strong political connections and the ETB project was withdrawn entirely.