LOS ANGELES — Metrolink could add two new stations within Los Angeles County based on work in progress by LA Metro, the county transit agency that helps fund the five-county commuter rail operator.
The LA Daily News reports new stops are being considered near the Los Angeles County Medical Center in Boyle Heights and in Pico Rivera.
A feasibility study of the medical center stop, completed last year, concluded it would benefit more than 9,600 hospital workers and visitors, and decrease street traffic around the facility previously known as the County-USC Medical Center. A survey of 1,500 hospital employees found 55% said they would use train service with the direct stop, LA County Supervisor and LA Metro Board member Hilda Solis told the Daily News.
The station would be on Metrolink’s San Bernardino Line, and would be added between LA Union Station and the current first stop east of Union Station at Cal State Los Angeles. LA Metro is beginning the process of preparing environmental documents needed to build the new station.
Planning for the Pico Rivera station is in a more preliminary stage. Metro’s board has approved a feasibility study, but a consultant has yet to be hired. The study is slated to begin this fall and be completed in fall 2024.
That station, between existing stops in Commerce and Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs, would be on Metrolink’s Orange County and 91/Perris Valley lines, the two busiest in the Metrolink system. It would allow connections with a planned extension of Metro’s light rail A (Gold) line, as well as a planned bus rapid transit route.
Where there’s a will; there’s a way.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün