The Metro Board of Directors approved on June 26 a plan to build a light-rail station at 96th Street and Aviation Boulevard that would serve as part of a long-anticipated connection between public transit and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
The planned rail station, which will be built along the under-construction Crenshaw/LAX Line, is expected to serve as a connection point with a proposed people-mover to LAX.
The board’s vice chair, Mayor Eric Garcetti, called it a “historic day,” as the board moves to “fix an incredible mistake of our past, a symbol of failed government, failed planning….”
City and County leaders have lamented the lack of direct rail options out of the airport similar to ones available in other major cities, despite decades of talking about it.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, who compared the years leading up to the vote to “waiting for Godot,” urged Metro staff and airport officials to make the station and the connection a comfortable experience for passengers.
He said the station should be “enclosed,” and less like the open air stations often built by Metro.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe raised concerns that the station might become a “beautiful terminal to nowhere” without a guarantee from the airport agency that a people mover would be built.
Los Angeles World Airports director Gina Marie Lindsey assured the board that the people mover would be mutually beneficial, and solve “big problems” at the airport.
Lindsey promised the board would have more certainty regarding the people mover by December.
Metro officials have yet to estimate costs for the planned station.
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