July 6, 2010

Slowly, mass transit is taking hold in a city synonymous with the car. Now a light-rail line is finally coming to the affluent and traffic-choked Westside after years of local resistance, and at least some urban-style development is likely to follow.

When the $2.4 billion Exposition Line, currently under construction on an unused freight rail right-of-way, is completed, by 2015, its electric cars will travel all the way to Santa Monica, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

The 8.6-mile first phase of the project, now about two-thirds finished, extends west from the University of Southern California, at the eastern end, to Culver City, the home of Sony Studios. Concrete columns that will support elevated train stops have sprouted near the busiest intersections along the route.

In addition to removing tens of thousands of cars from the road — 64,000 daily riders by 2030, according to transit authorities — the 15.6-mile Expo Line is expected to spawn a variety of mixed-use real estate projects, as some of the city’s previous rail lines have done. A project including more than 500 units of housing and a 300-room W hotel was recently completed at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and a rental and retail complex was built at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in 2007.

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Source: New York Times