Regional Connector

Last Friday, Metro began its slightly-delayed closure of the Little Tokyo Gold Line Station. The station will be closed for about three months while Gold Line tracks are relocated to make way for Regional Connector subway construction. If this construction goes reasonably well, the on time within-budget Regional Connector will open in 2021.

Details are still emerging, but this morning, Metro Board of Directors chair Mark Ridley-Thomas announced that Little Tokyo businesses served Metro with a Temporary Restraining Order against Regional Connector subway construction. The legal threat caused the Metro board to decide to delay track relocation construction that had been announced to begin tomorrow. If the terms are approved, the construction will not begin until January 2016.

This morning, the Metro board's Construction Committee approved an additional $131.8M for construction of the downtown Los Angeles Regional Connector subway. This increase ups the budget from $1.42 billion to 1.55 billion - a 9 percent increase.

U.S. President Barack Obama released his administration's proposed FY 2015-16 budget which includes $330 million in New Starts funding planned for subways in Los Angeles:

Electeds, agency representatives, and other leaders gathered  in Little Tokyo yesterday to commemorate the groundbreaking for construction of Metro's Regional Connector subway. Metro boardmembers were joined by federal Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and even activist-actor George Takei.

There is much celebrating going on by Metro and  transit expansion advocates around the region. In President Barack Obama's proposed budget for next year, a cool $200 million is set aside for Los Angeles under the "new starts" program. $100 million of that is set to go towards the Regional Connector and the other $100 million to the Westside Subway extension.

This morning, local elected officials and federal administrators joined together to announce that Metro's Regional Connector is now fully funded. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is granting $670 million in New Starts funding to the Regional Connector, and also extending a low-interest TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan of $160 million.

(Public meetings for the connector continue today at the Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St.; 1 to 3 p.m., Aug. 28, at the Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave.; and 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Aug. 29, at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First St. Project information is at metro.net/projects/connector.)

After two months of delay, and after being pushed to second on today's agenda behind the Westside Subway, the Regional Connector finally had a moment to shine at the Metro Board of Directors.  The environmental documents approving the Connector passed seven to zero.  The official twitter account for the Regional Connector celebrated by noting that the "Regional Connector has gone from a study to a project.  How cool is that?"  Given that the Connector is perhaps the most important project in the region, connecting all existing and future transit lines, the final passage of the environmental documents is very cool.