Link: Light Rail Proposed for Crenshaw Corridor
Light Rail Proposed for Crenshaw Corridor
November 12, 2009
By CHICO C. NORWOOD
STAFF WRITER
Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff members have proposed a light-rail line over a busway for the Crenshaw/LAX Corridor, partly due to an effort to help relieve transportation woes in Los Angeles.
During a telephone conference, Metro officials unveiled the recommendation for the proposed $1.7 billion, 8 1/2-mile rail project that would extend from Exposition Boulevard to the Green Line on Imperial Highway.
“The subject of a Crenshaw transit corridor has been discussed in transit circles for decades and has received a lot of attention,” said Dan Rosenfeld, senior deputy for Economic Development, Sustainability and Mobility for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Rosenfeld said the rail line is being recommended over a previously considered bus line because rail offers the greatest benefit to travel time along the corridor, improves opportunities for economic development, and enables Los Angeles to “catch up with other cities around the country in providing commuter rail service to the airport.”
The proposed line would begin at Exposition and Crenshaw boulevards, going south along Crenshaw Boulevard through the area known as the Harbor Subdivision located near Florence Avenue, said Metro Project Manager Roderick Diaz. The line would then go southwest, running parallel to Florence Avenue, through the city of Inglewood. It would continue south to Aviation Boulevard and connect with the Green Line at Imperial Highway and Aviation.
“From a transportation perspective, this is the first north-south rail project in the Metro system and will begin to bring congestion relief and air quality relief and mobility options to people on the west side of the county, relieving the 405 freeway and other notoriously congested streets,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s a great step forward.”
He said that the hope is to eventually extend the line south to the cities of Torrance, Carson and perhaps Long Beach and San Pedro.
It is projected that the line will have a ridership of 15,000 to 21,000 daily. The project is also expected to generate about 7,600 jobs during construction.
According to Rosenfeld, 400 to 500 letters have been received from the community in support of the project. Among the supporters is the Los Angeles Urban League.
“We certainly support the light-rail option just with regards to economic development and in terms of speed of transit. We do consider it a victory,” said Trevor Ware, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Urban League. “We are strongly in support of the below-grade options that have been spelled out.”
The project calls for below-grade separations, including one that would be north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — at 39th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard — and another one at Crenshaw and 48th Street, south of Vernon Avenue.
Stations along the route would include one at Exposition and Crenshaw and others at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards; Crenshaw and Slauson Avenue; Century Boulevard and Aviation; and more.
There are also unresolved alignments that are being proposed, including a grade separation at Exposition and Crenshaw and a potential station at Vernon Avenue and Crenshaw, Diaz said.
Manuel Criollo, an organizer for the Bus Riders Union, said trains are often another scheme for gentrification and said funds should be used to improve the overall transportation system as opposed to one corridor.
“It’s a complicated issue. We’re opposed … based on the real necessity of those who depend on the (public transportation) system,” he said. “The county is so large, job access to different areas is so wide, that if you’re going to invest … a billion dollars on one corridor rather than investing in countywide systems like a bus system that can give you accessibility, then we think it can only recreate what we have right now, which is a lack of access to different parts of the county.”
The proposal will go to Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee on Nov. 18 and to the Metro board on Dec. 10.
If approved, the environmental impact report and final impact statement should be completed by mid-2010, and groundbreaking and construction could begin in 2012, Rosenfeld said.
Construction should take about six years, and the line could open in 2016, he said.
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