Heck with Buses, MTA Wants Light Rail for Crenshaw
8.5 mile light rail line would run through the heart of Crenshaw
Metro.net
Community groups and South L.A. officials cheered a new MTA report that calls for light rail over rapid bus lines through the Crenshaw corridor.
The $1.7 billion project would run about 8.5 miles from the intersection of Exposition and Crenshaw through Inglewood to the airport and connect with the Green Line. Part of the project, including a section that would run underneath Leimert Park is being proposed as a subway, according to Metro's project manager Roderick Diaz in the LA Times. The project could create nearly 7,800 jobs.
Community leaders were excited by the prospect of better mass transit.
"Look at the transportation options that we have now. We have buses on Crenshaw and we see other neighborhoods that are developing other types of transportation options," Trevor Ware, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Urban League, told the Times.
"To have a decision made that we will have light rail - that's so much faster and will have so much more of an economic impact - we need that too," he said.
The planning and programming committee as well as the Metro's board of directors must approve the project but estimates say groundbreaking could happen as early as 2012.
