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While the dream of a Los Angeles connected by quick and seamless rail lines is not quite here just yet, Metro is hard at work building trains all over the county to make that dream materialize.
And to prove it, Metro released some new renderings, on Friday, of three stations along its upcoming Crenshaw/LAX line. The Crenshaw Line is scheduled to open sometime in 2019, and will run from the present Expo Line station at Crenshaw Boulevard, all the way down to the Green Line, connecting at the Aviation/Century station.
Most notably, the Crenshaw line will eventually include a stop that links L.A.’s Metro system directly to LAX itself, via the planned Airport People Mover. Although the people mover will not be finished by the time the Crenshaw Line opens, it will connect to the line at the planned Aviation/96th station. That station will be constructed in tandem with the people mover, and will not be opened until the people mover is ready for service, supposedly sometime around 2023.
While all of this sounds pretty far off, it’s important to remember that the Crenshaw line is one the projects made possible by Measure R, a ballot measure passed in 2008 increasing sales tax by half-a-cent to pay for several Metro projects. 2008 was eight years ago, and 2023 is seven years from now. And we are only now just beginning to see the fruits of the billions raised by the sales tax with the Expo and Gold Line extensions opening very soon.
If we want to start looking more into the future, the Crenshaw line will eventually connect north from the its current terminus with the Expo Line, to the Purple Line extension’s Wilshire/La Brea station. This phase II of the Crenshaw line is currently in the pre-construction phase, but will eventually manifest as funding is found.
Looking even farther ahead, a 2010 feasibility study also hints at how this phase II extension could one-day grow into a line that runs from the Fairfax district to Hollywood. That extension would run along La Brea and Santa Monica Boulevards, eventually connecting to the Hollywood/Highland Red-Line Station.
That's the dream: a Los Angeles where you can take a single train from Hollywood to LAX, and then get whisked into the airport to your terminal by an automated people-mover. It’s certainly possible, and the plans are all there.
But for now though, be satisfied with these renderings of some stations that will definitely open within the next three years:
Note: We previously said the people mover would be completed in 2024. The goal is actually one year prior, sometime during 2023. We'll see how that goes.
