Mark Ridley-Thomas

On October 23, 2014, the Metro Board of Directors voted to adopt the Rail to River Intermediate Active Transportation Corridor (ATC) Feasibility Study and directed staff to identify funding for full implementation of the project. The Board also authorized $2,850,000 be put towards facilitating the environmental, design, alternative route analysis, and outreach work required for the project to move forward and requested the staff report back in May of 2015.

In a motion before the Metro Executive Management Committee last Thursday morning, County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas cited the successful "transformation of unused or abandoned rail right-of-ways into pedestrian access and bicycle routes" around the country and here in L.A. as support for his call that the Board direct Chief Executive Officer Art Leahy to move forward on the recommendations found in the 212-page feasibility study on the proposed Rail-to-River Bikeway.

Yesterday, the Metro Board of Directors awarded the nearly $1.3 billion construction contract for the Crenshaw Line to Walsh/Shea Corridors Construction.

It’s time to declare victory in the battle for a Leimert Park Metro station.

For years, residents surrounding the Slauson Avenue Corridor between La Brea and Angeles Vista have argued that the sad looking street needs an upgrade.  What form that upgrade takes is up to debate, some residents want the street changed to allow more cars to move through the corridor while most others want to see the four lane road improved to allow for a better environment for all users.

Last week, Metro staff responded to a motion by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to create a community benefits plan for the Crenshaw Community, especially in the area where the line is scheduled to run at-grade, during construction and operations of the line.  The response was a power point presentation showing where the agency currently is in its thinking about community benefits and while some community activists are unhappy with the presentation, Ridley-Thomas' office seems to think it's a good first step.

At first, it looked like a pretty innocuous motion on a Metro Board Planning and Programming Committee Agenda.  Item #19, passed quickly and unanimously by the committee, shuffles $170 million in funds dedicated towards Red Line expansion, partially from Measure R, to cover the "unmet costs" to complete the rail yards for Expo Phase II light rail cars.  (Note: As was pointed out in the comments section, the staff report says that the Southwest yard is for Green/Crenshaw Line cars, not Expo cars.)

When Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas' motions to make the Crenshaw Light Rail project run entirely below-grade and to construct a station at Leimert Park both failed, the Board Member promised he would be back with a new motion to improve the project in a different way. At last week's Metro Board Meeting, Ridley-Thomas introduced a motion calling for community benefits during construction of the Expo Line.

Leimert Park from Mark Ridley-Thomas on Vimeo.