Metro Expansion: Downtown Regional Connector to open Father’s Day weekend

May 26, 2023

Construction Director Mat Antonelli (left), Councilmember Ara Najarian, Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins, Vice Chair Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, Construction Committee Chair Fernando Dutra, Director Paul Krekorian, Director Katy Yaroslavski, former board member Pam O’Conner and Supervisor Hilda Solis.

During a recent gathering outside of the newly built Little Tokyo/Arts District Station, Metro board members and executives revealed that the agency's Regional Connector Transit Project will be completed and open to the public on Friday, June 16.

The Regional Connector will unite the Metro L (Gold), A (Blue), E (Expo), B (Red) and D (Purple) lines at Downtown Los Angeles’ Seventh Street/Metro Center station. Riders will now be able to travel from as far as Azusa to Long Beach and from East Los Angeles to Santa Monica in one seat.

The project also features three new underground stations: Little Tokyo/Arts District Station on the corner of East First Street and North Alameda Street; Historic Broadway Station on Second Street and Broadway; and Grand Avenue Arts/Bunker Hill Station, Metro's deepest rail system and a connection point for arts and cultural venues like The Broad, MOCA, The Music Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

"Over the past 30 years, Metro has stitched together an expansive rail network that stretches from the South Bay and Santa Monica to East LA and the San Gabriel Valley, but we’ve always had a missing link through the Downtown core," Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins said. "The regional connector will enable a lot more access for a lot more people, and it's when our county needs it the most. We’re seeing ridership begin to rebound, particularly on the weekends and during the off peak, and it's because families want to connect more to destinations, cultural events and activities. Regional connector is going to support the revitalization of Downtown LA as it continues to emerge from the pandemic and people are slowly returning to normal."

The Metro line from Long Beach to Azusa will be the longest light-rail line in the world with an end-to-end timing of approximately one hour and 58 minutes, while traveling from East LA to Santa Monica will take riders one hour and nine minutes. Each line will start by running with a frequency of 20 minutes during off-peak hours and 12 minutes during on peak hours.

The project has been described as "unique in terms of the scale" of its expansion by Downtown leaders like DCBID Executive Director Nick Griffin, who also said that it comes at a time when "the Metro system is more important than ever."

Public transportation remains a point of discussion and debate in Downtown LA, the heart of a car-reliant city known for its congested highways, but Metro projects like the Ambassador Program, GoPass Pilot Program and the Regional Connector Transit Project have been recently introduced in an effort to improve accessibility and public safety, which has suffered in recent years.

Nine days before Metro set the opening date for their new regional connector stations in Downtown, a 36-year-old man was shot to death outside of the Civic Center/Grand Park Station following what witnesses described as an argument before the suspect fled the scene. This shooting came one month after a fatal stabbing of 25-year-old Luis Fernando Polita on a Metro A Line train in Long Beach, the third stabbing on a Metro line within a week.

The number of deaths on Metro systems this year already surpassed the entirety of 2022, the majority of which have been attributed to drug overdose. It's a trend that Metro has recognized, inspiring its board to approve the deployment of 48 new transit security officers in March and 300 trained, unarmed ambassadors in April across transit lines.

"We’re really proud of this project today; you’ll be able to see the infrastructure, but what you won't yet see is all the people who will be working on the regional connector to keep these stations as friendly, clean and safe as they can be," Wiggins said. "Dozens of Metro operators, service attendants, ambassadors, transit security, custodians and outreach workers will be working around the clock on the trains and in our stations to deliver on the promise of the regional connector, and that is to improve the quality of life for the people all over the county."

Glendale City Councilmember and Metro board Chair Ara J. Najarian added that the Regional Connector has been one of the agency's safest and most cost-efficient projects, as its construction took 7.7 million hours without any times lost due to injury or incident.

"That's a tremendous record for a job of this complexity," said Mat Antonelli, construction director at Metro, before speaking about the community-involved construction process. "Our tunnel, going back east, does travel underneath the Walt Disney Concert Hall, … the Colburn School of Music and other stakeholders. There was a very big concern, obviously, for noise and vibration, as trains are operating not only during construction but after construction for many years. We were able to put in some special track, what we call a ‘floating slab,’ that really takes all the noise and vibration out of the trains. And we’ve done a lot of testing up on the surface, both in an outside of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and been able to prove that there's no noise, vibration or impact on the stakeholders."

Each station was also outfitted with artwork as part of the Metro Regional Connector Art Program, which involved over 180 local artists and community organizations. Artists Andrea Bowers, Audrey Chan, Mark Steven Greenfield, Ann Hamilton, Pearl C. Hsiung, Clare Rojas, Mungo Tomson and Clare Williams developed their work over the past seven years and will be showcased in the new Metro stations. There will also be two temporary exhibitions featuring Ralph Gilbert and Samira Yamin at the Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hill and Historic Broadway Stations.

"It's such a rich area for (art)," said Maya Emsden, executive officer of Metro's art and cultural programming. "What is unique about the LA Metro system is how deeply we integrate the artwork into the construction project. … The art program is a very important part of the customer experience."

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics on the horizon, Metro's programs and upcoming expansion of the city's transit lines have served as signifiers of a desired shift from car-based travel to rail and bus-based travel and as symbols of the agency's drive to see this future realized for Angelenos.

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