The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke ground on Wednesday on a 12.4 mile bus rapid transit corridor running north to south along Vermont Avenue, from East Hollywood to West Athens. The corridor will have curbside bus lanes in both directions, transit signal priority, off board fare payment and all door boarding, and Metro estimates end to end travel times will fall by up to 24 percent.
The Federal Transit Administration awarded the project nearly 150 million dollars through its Capital Investment Grant Small Starts programme on September 1. With that grant plus state funds and local voter approved sales tax revenue, the project is fully funded, Metro said. Portions of the corridor will enter service as lanes are completed, ahead of a full opening anticipated in 2028, potentially in time for the Summer Olympics.
The completed corridor is expected to carry more than 66,000 riders a day and connects with four Metro Rail lines and more than 13 east west bus routes, serving the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Exposition Park Stadium area, the University of Southern California and nearly 90 schools. Metro will upgrade 26 stations with lighting, real time arrival displays and accessible ramps, alongside wider sidewalks and protected bike lanes.
Chief executive Stephanie Wiggins called Vermont the north south backbone of the bus system. The capital lesson is the funding stack: a mid sized federal grant unlocked a fully funded corridor because state and local tax money was already committed, the opposite sequence from projects that announce first and finance later.