5 stations are going offline
The 10-week closures on Green Line will let crews connect tracks to Crenshaw Line.
Five stations along the Metro Green Line will close for more than two months starting Friday so crews can connect the tracks to the Crenshaw Line, a light-rail route currently under construction.
The Green Line’s Redondo Beach, Douglas, El Segundo, Mariposa and Aviation/LAX stations will close at 9 p.m. Friday and are expected to reopen April 7, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said.
During the closure, Metro will run shuttle buses between the Aviation/LAX station and the line’s terminus in Redondo Beach, spokesman Jose Ubaldo said. The buses will mimic the rail line’s timetable, arriving every six minutes during peak hours, and every 15 minutes for the remainder of the day.
The closure could add 25 minutes to riders’ trips, Ubaldo said.
Crews will connect the Green Line’s tracks to the Crenshaw Line, which will run north and south between Jefferson Park and Westchester. When the $2billion line opens, scheduled for next fall, Los Angeles County’s rail network will grow by 8.5 miles and seven stations.
Linking the two lines’ tracks means trains could eventually carry riders from Jefferson Park all the way to Redondo Beach, Ubaldo said, although that decision has not been finalized.
Eventually, the Crenshaw Line will also carry riders to Los Angeles International Airport. A station is slated to open in 2023 at 96th Street and Aviation Boulevard, where riders will be able to transfer to smaller, automated trains that will shuttle among a consolidated car-rental facility, a ground transportation hub and the terminal area.
The 10-week closure follows years of ridership woes on the Green Line, the only Metro rail line that does not connect to downtown Los Angeles. Monthly trips on the route have fallen nearly 20% over two years, to 820,537 in December 2017 from more than 1 million in December 2015, according to agency data.
Over the next several years, the line's connection to the Crenshaw Line and the Expo Line could help bolster ridership, particularly among commuters who live in the South Bay and work on the Westside. But in the short term, the shutdown could further depress ridership.