As a key transit center is set to open near Los Angeles International Airport, another transit project in nearby Inglewood is about to be reimagined.
The $900 million LAX/Metro Transit Center, formerly known as the Metro Airport Connector, is now set to open on June 6, moving one step closer to providing passengers from LAX with a direct link to the region’s rail and bus networks. The link is set to be completed early next year with the opening of the $3.3 billion automated people mover at LAX.
Meanwhile, in Inglewood, officials last month unveiled a new strategy to boost transit between the city’s downtown Market Street district and the burgeoning sports and entertainment area surrounding the Hollywood Park/SoFi Stadium complex after the previous iteration of the transit project collapsed when it failed to secure local funding.
Key part of rail link to LAX set to open
The LAX/Metro Transit Center is a multilevel rail station near 96th Street and Aviation Boulevard that will serve as the transit hub for the LAX area. It will be one of the stops on the 2.2-mile automated people mover route taking passengers to and from the LAX terminals.
The station will also have stops for both the Metro K and C rail lines. And there will be a bus plaza with connections to several Metro bus lines, LAX FlyAway shuttles, Culver City Bus, Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus and Torrance Transit. A bicycle hub will round out the transit center.
Sylmar-based Tutor Perini Corp. has been the main construction contractor for the station project; London-based Grimshaw and mid-Wilshire-based Gruen Associates have served as project architects.
Reimagining transit project
Meanwhile, a few stops up the Metro K Line in Inglewood, officials in that city had been forced back to the drawing board late last year after a local government council rejected a plan to provide nearly $500 million in matching local funds to secure more than $1 billion in federal funding for a $2 billion-plus, 1.6-mile automated people mover rail project.
On April 22, the Inglewood City Council voted to award $34 million to the Elevate Inglewood Partners consortium to reassess the transit project.
The current city thinking is for a first phase that consists of beautification and congestion-reduction measures for the city’s Market Street district, including building façade improvements, bus-only lanes and
traffic signal synchronization. One promise city officials have made is to cut nearly in half the number of businesses that would be forced to relocate, to 23 from 44 under the original plan.
