The Green Line light rail connecting the South Bay with Norwalk used to be derided as the line that went from nowhere to nowhere. Not anymore.

The Green Line is slated to finally connect to Los Angeles International Airport – a job that still has six years.

Now business leaders in the South Bay are anticipating a long- planned 4.5-mile southward extension of the line from its current terminus in Redondo Beach to Torrance.

The extension – initially projected to cost $890 million – got a source of funding with the passage of the Measure M sales tax increase last year.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in recent weeks has been presenting plans for the southward extension to business and civic groups in the South Bay. The targeted completion date is about 2030, though that could move up three years to be completed before the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.

“People very supportive of extending the Green Line and connecting to LAX,” said Marna Smeltzer, chief executive of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce.

But there’s a catch: The long-preferred route using a right of way that Metro purchased 20 years ago alongside a freight rail line has drawn opposition from Lawndale residents concerned about more noise in adjacent residential neighborhoods. That has forced Metro to put forward an alternate route along a one-mile stretch down the median of Hawthorne Boulevard.

The Hawthorne Boulevard route would bypass a planned transit center on the west side of the popular South Bay Galleria shopping center.

Meghna Khanna, the MTA’s program manager for the South Bay light rail extension, said the agency is working on options to connect the Hawthorne Boulevard route to the transit center, either with a detour or another transit connection.

Khanna said the $890 million cost was an initial estimate for the route alongside the railroad; the cost of the Hawthorne Boulevard route has not yet been calculated.

All this has pushed back plans to go before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board for a final vote on the extension; that is now slated for sometime in the second half of next year.

– Howard Fine