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Health & Fitness

A Light at the End of the Tunnel (The Green Line Extension)

        The Metro Green Line was built in 1995, and for 19 years there has been ever present conflict. The line was intended to connect Norwalk with Aviation. But, it stopped one mile short of the airport. Los Angeles city councilman Mike Bonin wants to fix this.

       “Folks consistently say, ‘Los Angeles, what the hell is the matter with you, you don’t have a mass transit that connects to the airport. The Green Line stops a mile away, then you have to schlep your luggage to get on the bus.’” The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is conducting a review to find a way to extend the Green Line from the South Bay directly to LAX. This will provide an alternative method of transportation to one of the busiest airports.

       “The issue of how to connect mass transit to the airport didn’t just come up,” Bonin says, “it’s been sort of on the radar screen without a lot of consensus or a lot of action since the 1970s or sooner, and it’s this endless loop of history repeating itself with sporadic discussions and no resolution.” As chair of the city’s transportation committee and councilman, for the 11th district that includes the airport, he says, “I thought it was an area I needed to focus on.”

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        If the project goes through, the new Green Line would connect with the airport and, in addition, extend to El Segundo, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance and the Del Aire and Lennox areas of unincorporated Los Angeles County. With more than 30 square miles to cover, the LAX and South Bay extension may be daunting, but, Bonin says, “we’ve been trying to find a way to make sure this actually happens.”

       The connection to the airport, titled ‘LAX Connect,’ has the backing of Bonin and mayor Eric Garcetti. With this, Bonin says, “the airport would conceptualize, create and build a new front door for the airport, and that is a place where shuttles, buses and the Green Line would go, so where the Crenshaw Line would go, [the South Bay extension,] and also ultimately a North-South mass transit line could also go there and you could have something from LAX, up Sepulveda, through the Sepulveda pass, and into the San Fernando valley.” The program, Bonin says, “would create a multi-modal transportation facility. It would be a place where you could check your luggage and get your ticket, so you would be at the airport and hop on the tram to your terminal.”

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        How can the city afford to build this? “Voters approved a sales-tax increase called ‘Measure R,’ which sets aside a few hundred million dollars for this,” Bonin says. “There will be another sales tax increase measure in 2016.”

        The ultimate question is--will this project actually happen? “Honestly to get it built, constructed and operational will probably be another 10 years,” Bonin says, “and in order for it to be approved, the FAA and Federal Transportation Agency, two federal agencies, have to approve it.” He uses the example of renovating a house to explain this. “When you renovate a house, you can stay in a hotel, but you can’t shut down the airport.”

        But will this project ultimately be carried out? “It’s going to be a nightmare,” Bonin says. But it’s going to happen? “Yes,” he says, “exactly.”

 

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