Federal loan approved for Crenshaw corridor train connecting Downtown to LAX
Downtowners will soon be able to get to the airport via Metro trains.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — A light-rail line that will connect downtown L.A. to LAX by traveling through the Crenshaw corridor inches closer to construction this week, after the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) approved a $545.9-million loan for the project.
“I traveled to Washington, D.C. to push hard for these funds through countless meetings at the White House, at the Capitol, and at the Department of Transportation," said Mayor Villaraigosa in a statement. "This work has clearly paid off and I will to work until the end of my term to ensure Los Angeles can continue to build a 21st Century transportation system.”
The federal loan for the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor is a TIFIA loan -- a program that was expanded this summer to provide financial help to significant, regional transportation projects.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said in a statement that the Crenshaw line is the only project in the region to have been allotted one of these loans.
“It is my hope and expectation that this massive infusion of federal funds will enhance the light-rail project in such a way that serves the entire region — speeding passengers to the airport, creating much-needed in the community, and providing the financial flexibility and stability that will see a station located in Leimert Park Village,” said Ridley-Thomas.
The new 8.5-mile train line will serve multiple cities within the county as well as a few unincorporated areas. The light-rail will include at least six new stations, additional parking and a vehicle storage and maintenance facility, in addition to connecting the Green Line, which goes from Norwalk to the South Bay, to the Expo Line, which will eventually stretch from downtown L.A. to Santa Monica.
The USDOT says that this new train will make it "easier for low-income residents, seniors and other riders to reach downtown Los Angeles, the Westside, South Bay and the cities of Inglewood, Hawthorne and El Segundo."
Metro's blog the Source reports that although the more than $500-million loan was announced in 2010, it wasn't officially secured until Monday. The project is currently receiving contractors' bids.
KPCC reports that the new light rail is projected to open in six years.
LAofAnaheim on October 03, 2012, at 08:14AM – #1
Lets be a little more appropriate on the headline. The Crenshaw Line will connect South LA to the South Bay with a new station that will serve LAX by shuttles and/or a people mover. The Crenshaw Line is NOT a connection between DTLA and LAX. The LAX Flyaway shuttle is the only true DTLA to LAX connection. Crenshaw Line is a good project and when it eventually gets extended north to West Hollywood and Hollywood it will give people more transit options in LA!
Tony Hoover on October 03, 2012, at 10:40PM – #2
The Crenshaw line will not connect downtown to LAX. It will connect Mid-Wilshire to LAX. From Mid-Wilshire you will need to transfer to the Purple line to get to downtown. One major flaw in Metro's plans is that there is no direct connection between downtown and LAX. If I was attending a convention at one of the downtown hotels I would not take public transit because of this flaw. Other major cities have express trains to their city centers. London has the fabulous Heathrow Express, San Francisco has the Bart, New York has the Long Island Railroad from JFK to Penn Station. Its really to bad that this was never part of the plan because it could have been a selling point for Los Angeles to major conventions. I tried using the Flyaway many times but the buses are overcrowed, they are old and falling apart and the operators are rude. The only good thing about the Flyaway is that its cheap. Maybe one day a private company will develop an express train from LAX to LA Live.
John G on October 04, 2012, at 08:18AM – #3
I agree with both commenters above. If we are going to plan Los Angeles as a world class global city, we need to plan it right. Unfortunately, there are many roadblocks our city and developers face due to litigation, political will (especially during election times), and funding.
LAofAnaheim on October 04, 2012, at 01:12PM – #4
@Tony Hoover The Crenshaw Line does not connect with mid-Wilshire, it connects with the Expo Line in South LA. Eventually, there will be a northern extension of the Crenshaw Line to Wilshire, West Hollywood and Hollywood (preliminary studies are available on Metro.net). To get to LAX via the Crenshaw Line, one would have to take the Expo Line to Expo/Crenshaw station and connect to Crenshaw Line to Century station.
Also, in your comparison of airports and transit connections. Century station will be exactly like JFK/Jamaica station as you cite as an example of world-class cities connecting transit to the airports. JFK has no trains running directly into it from Manhattan. All patrons have to connect at Jamaica station. The Crenshaw Line will build our own "Jamaica" like station - Century station, 1.2 miles from LAX. From there, people will connect via a people mover (again, identifical to JFK airport) to get into LAX. Ongoing studies are happening right now for either a 1)people mover or 2) bus rapid transit from Century Station into LAX.
John G on October 04, 2012, at 02:01PM – #5
@LAofAnaheim
William Crandell on October 04, 2012, at 08:54PM – #6
Oh right, just what L.A. needs: an elevated people mover system running down the middle of its major boulevards.
The vehicles would become plastered with handbills and graffitti. the structures the same. the boulevards would be cast into shadows and overwhelmed wherever stations were built and whenever a big quake hits, voila: we can tear down the whole damaged system and start over.
Let's construct the first station right in front of John G's residence.
Would the vehicles be automated? Would punksters defecate and urinate in said vehicles? Would criminals rape secretaries as the vehicles travel high above Crenshaw Boulevard?
What school of architectural dystopia did he attend? Did he minor in urban lunacy?
Imagine a people mover system constructed along Park Avenue in NYC, along Market Street in San Fran or along the Champs elysee in Paris.
LAofAnaheim on October 05, 2012, at 08:43AM – #7
@William There is no direct comparison between Park Avenue in NYC to Century boulevard in LA. Are there are residential apartments or houses on that stretch of Century/Aviation to LAX? Nope, just hotels, delivery warehouses and strip clubs. There are people movers in Phoenix, Miami and Dallas. Don't take an extreme position. Studies are happening at LAWA right now. Participate in them. Currently, the People Mover is winning.
Matthew McKelligon on October 05, 2012, at 09:04AM – #8
@ William:
I think you misunderstood. John G is referring to a people mover from the Green/Crenshaw Lines to LAX, a short stretch of elevated tracks through a wholly commercial/industrial area. It would be precisely the same people mover that they have at SFO and JFK.
I find it rather annoying that Metro has to even consider BRT as an option for certain transit projects. At what point can we just let common sense prevail and stop worrying about placating the Bus Riders Union?
LAofAnaheim on October 05, 2012, at 12:02PM – #9
@Matthew You think the BRU want bus rapid transit? They want us to ride around in the Metro Orange Local buses. They don't even like the red Rapid buses because it misses all the local stops.
BRU is against BRT, LRT and subways. They're a misguided group with misguided direction.
John G on October 05, 2012, at 01:45PM – #10
Matthew,thank you for the clarification. I think William is the lunatic who figures LA is a dystopian nightmare. Perhaps Mr. Crandell should co-author his next book with Mike Davis, they both seem to share the same deranged sentiments...
Arnold Schwarzzie on October 05, 2012, at 06:21PM – #11
Right on Mister Crandell!
Yes, there is the sorry record of the city's late redevelopment agency once having attempted to construct an atrocious, automated, driverless, elevated, two-way people mover track through the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
A monorail line was constructed in Seattle for that city's early Sixties World's Fair and has remained as an eyesore ever since.
Long linear structures, two-way tracks supported by evenly spaced pillars are very subject to damage inflicted by vertical or horizontal earthquakes.
The airport needs to be accessible via more efficient types of at-grade or subterranean mass transit, not a unique and more costly to maintain form of automated transit.
Who wants to be riding along in a comparatively small and smelly people mover vehicle high above the street when The Big One hits? Who wants to be riding in such a vehicle with fewer riders when a lunatic or a criminal goes berzerk? Who wants to look at automated vehicles plastered with stickers, handbills, posters, grime and graffitti. Such vehicles will become moving billboards sliding through dystopia. Who wants to look at grime encrusted people mover stations?
The cost of maintaining any people mover system or rebuilding any such system should be borne solely by people mover-bots. Yes, I know that Saint Bradbury was obsessed with monorails and people movers. However, as regards urban design and city planning sensibility, the writer could effectually serve as a proponent of what would result in antediluvia. People mover-bots are Energizer Bunnies, are simply lunatic over their futuristic concepts. The long term result of living with people movers would be quite another story. Cinema's 'Blade Runner' suggests where such alternative stories really end up.
John G on October 06, 2012, at 10:42AM – #12
It's interesting to see how quick some people, in their vain attempt to justify the evils of something, point out specific issues and make hasty generalizations about it. I have never seen the scope of graffiti on the Metro Gold Line at the same level as the Blue Line (and I will admit the Blue Line is older). And the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley can be far different than the suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley (and both are in LA County). Advances in technology that we have today have also been taken for granted. Building large housing projects today still invokes fear in people who are remniscence of the tenant slums of the Industrial Revolution. Yet, housing standards, structural engineering, contruction materials air quality standards, and LEED certification are some of the things today that make our high density projects paradise compared to the tenement slums of our past. However, for the sake of convenience, the public is relegated to only empirical evidence and their own perceived biased notions; the carnage we see on TV, the conversations in the breakroom, and the sensationalism brought forth by media and lobbyists. Based on these premises, I suspect some people here will throw in any descriptive word to paint the evils of something they hate; in this case monorails. I won't argue that there won't be graffiti on them or that vertical pillars will not come crashing down if the big one hits. What I am calling out for are alternative modes of transportation that is not relegated to the status quo (like a Green/Crenshaw monorail line to LAX). Why should one call a monorail automated and driverless as if it was a bad thing? Having a car full of people is much more socially engaging and transportation efficient than having hundreds of individual zombies encased their own mechanized vehicles on a freeway. Punksters and rapists can be a threat in any public space, but their criminal activities will not proliferate in a monorail full of people, plain-clothed police, and security cameras.
As technology and demographics change in Los Angeles, shall we continue to take them for granted while using the same baseless arguments against new ideas and projects. Again, making hasty generalizations is pure non-sense. Comparing Seattle's monorail to Los Angeles can be no different than say, comparing a marble and a tennis ball. Seattle has a much lower density than LA and has developed their urban planning based on local characteristics. SoCal is far so different, especially when one refers back to the 60s. And lets go back to the Earthquake issue. Anaylsts predict that SoCal will eventually be due for a big one again. As the forces of nature build up against those tectonic plates, should we just sit idle and smoke pot? Our sciences (materials/construction engineering) and development practices (ISO 9001, etc.) are in CONSTANT evolution. The crumbling 6th St bridge, the pancaked double stacked fwy from the SF quake, and the numerous structural damages from the Northridge quake are not just sole evidence of mother nature. They are also a reflection of our outdated engineering standards, social practices, and project management principles of our past, DECADES AGO. In addition, did NYC stop development after 9/11? Did Japan regress to building less after the Tsunamai catastrophe? Both global cities have overcome, what would make Los Angeles, as a GLOBAL CITY, any different? We cannnot continue to be fearful of new developments in Los Angeles, whether its a building or a transportation system. We are at a tipping point where are suburban model of living is quickly disappearing throughout Los Angeles County. If we continue to fight development, we only push for the same strategy that has caused sprawl in the first place. As a result, we never truly gain any effective urban model of growth, only ad hoc developments thoughout the southland catering to local political agendas - we can thank people like Mr. Crandell and Mr. Schwarzzie for this...
Arnold Schwarzzie on October 06, 2012, at 05:45PM – #13
Actually, I sort of like Mister Crandell. I only wish he hadn't referred to one particular character as 'Gonad The Barbarian' in one of his pieces in the L.A. Times! That was long ago and my nemesis didn't appreciate the moniker.
However and regards present issues, we are often enough unable to discern between our laurels and our thorns and if one were to think that I or el Crandello, that either of us has any interest whatsoever in 'the suburban model,' well they're simply a victim of (an academic) fairy tale spun with fulsome, presumptuous language.
Essentially, only one word will do: fatuous.