Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Photos: The Expo Line To Santa Monica Is Now Open
Metro officially opened its Expo Line extension from Culver City to Santa Monica at twelve o'clock noon on Friday. This means that, for the first time in more than 60 years, there is now regular rail service throughout Los Angeles' Westside.
Best of all, Metro is offering free rides on the rail line from 12 p.m. on Friday until the end of service, as well as all day on Saturday. Trips between downtown L.A. and downtown Santa Monica (and vice-versa) will take just 48 minutes, crossing through Exposition Park, Jefferson Park, West Adams, Culver City, Century City and West L.A. on the way.
This is a pretty momentous day for Los Angeles as a whole. At this morning's opening ceremony, elected officials and other VIP style folks turned out by the hundreds to celebrate the rail line's completion and opening to the general public. As L.A. County Supervisor Shelia Kuehl bubbly exclaimed, the line represents the rebirth of a comprehensive public transportation system in Los Angeles.
"We used to have one of the most comprehensive transit systems in the world," Kuehl said. "This new line shows how well along our way we are on building one again."
Support for LAist comes from
The Phase II extension completes the Expo Line's full 15.2 mile route between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Though Phase I of the Expo Line opened back in 2012 with twelve stations along a route between downtown L.A. and Culver City, the Phase II extension adds seven more stations along 6.6 miles of track between Culver City and downtown Santa Monica.
The new stations are named as such: Palms, Westwood/Rancho Park, Expo/Sepulveda, Expo/Bundy, 26th St/Bergamot, 17th St/SMC, Downtown Santa Monica.
To celebrate the line's opening, Santa Monica will be hosting a street festival on June 5, dubbed Santa Monica Coast. The event will open several streets in downtown Santa Monica exclusively for pedestrians, cyclists, and other human powered transportation.
Coincidentally, Expo Phase II is the second 'Measure R' project to open this year, following the Gold Line's extension to Azuza earlier this year. Measure R is a voter-approved half-cent sales-tax increase passed L.A. County voters back in 2008.
Metro has a similar ballot measure—dubbed Measure R II—in the process for the upcoming November 2016 election. To help fund Metro's $120 billion plan to develop public transportation, Measure R II would bump sales-tax up another half-cent.
With the Expo Line's opening, Los Angeles County now hosts 105 miles of rail transportation. That number, however, will continue to grow as the projects like the Crenshaw Line, Purple Line, the Regional Connector, the Sepulveda Pass corridor project, the Van Nuys Boulevard project, and others all mature and are completed.
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.
Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.
Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.
Chip in now to fund your local journalism
(
LAist
)
Trending on LAist
-
With less to prove than LA, the city is becoming a center of impressive culinary creativity. -
Nearly 470 sections of guardrailing were stolen in the last fiscal year in L.A. and Ventura counties.
-
Monarch butterflies are on a path to extinction, but there is a way to support them — and maybe see them in your own yard — by planting milkweed.
-
With California voters facing a decision on redistricting this November, Surf City is poised to join the brewing battle over Congressional voting districts.
-
The drug dealer, the last of five defendants to plead guilty to federal charges linked to the 'Friends' actor’s death, will face a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.
-
The weather’s been a little different lately, with humidity, isolated rain and wind gusts throughout much of Southern California. What’s causing the late-summer bout of gray?
Best of LAist