Over the July 30 through Aug. 1 weekend, Metro was scheduled to suspend rail service on the A (Blue) and E (Expo) lines through downtown. The rail line closures will continue for the next nine weekends as construction crews connect the existing A and E lines to the twin tunnels comprising the regional connector project. The A and E lines will then share the same route through much of downtown, including five stations.
Bus bridges will be provided to ensure passengers can continue to use Metro’s rail network through downtown.
According to Metro spokesman Rick Jager, much of the work will focus on merging the electrical and communication systems between the existing lines and stations and the new regional connector line.
The regional connector project is a new 1.9-mile underground rail line connecting Metro Rail’s L (Gold) Line with the 7th Street Metro Center Station. It also includes construction of three new stations: Little Tokyo/Arts District, Historic Broadway and Grand Avenue/Bunker Hill.
The purpose is to ease connections for passengers on five rail lines converging in downtown. When complete, passengers will be able to go directly between Azusa and Long Beach and between East Los Angeles and Santa Monica without transferring lines.
“The Regional Connector will make light rail trips to and through downtown much quicker and greatly reduce the need to transfer to reach many destinations,” according to Metro.
The rail line is expected to serve 88,000 riders daily — including 17,000 new riders — and save commuters up to 20 minutes by reducing the need to transfer for those riding to and through downtown, according to Metro.
The project has been on the drawing board for nearly 20 years. After many delays, major construction started in 2014 with a target opening date of late 2019. But delays continued to plague the project, including early on as crews tunneled through areas of Los Angeles dating back more than 150 years. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed work further.
The connector project is now slated to open late next year, more than two years behind schedule. And the project’s budget has roughly doubled from the $927 million original contract award amount.
The project’s contractor, Regional Connector Constructors, is a joint venture of Skanska USA’s Civil West California District — a unit of New York-based Skanska USA, which in turn is a subsidiary of Stockholm, Sweden-based Skanska — and Evansville, Ind.-based Traylor Bros. Inc. U.K.-based Mott MacDonald Group is the lead designer.
