A Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) was released today for the C Line (Green) Extension to Torrance Project and is available for public review through March 27, 2023.
The report can be viewed here.
The project would extend the C Line for 4.5 miles from the existing Marine Station in Redondo Beach to the new Torrance Transit Center. The extension would travel through Lawndale, Redondo Beach and Torrance and would include two new stations to connect the South Bay to the Metro system — including connections to the K Line, J (Silver) Line and A (Blue) Line.
A separate project, called the K Line Northern Extension, is studying extending the K Line north to a connection with the D (Purple) Line under Wilshire Boulevard and the B (Red) Line in Hollywood, which would allow for a future north/south rail line that extends all the way from Torrance to Hollywood.
The project is funded by the Measure M and R sales tax measures approved by L.A. County voters in 2008 and 2016, respectively, with $891 Million.
The Draft EIR studies three potential routes for the C Line extension, as well as the environmental impacts associated with each — as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
•Metro ROW Elevated/At-Grade Alignment: Follows the Metro ROW for the length of the Project from the existing Marine Station to the Torrance Transit Center, with an elevated segment, followed by an at-grade segment.
•Trench Option: Follows the Metro ROW for the length of the project, with below-grade trench segments between Inglewood Avenue and 182nd Street
•Hawthorne Option: Leaves the Metro ROW to run along Interstate 405, then turns onto Hawthorne Boulevard near 162nd Street to travel in the center median of the street before rejoining the Metro ROW south of 190th Street. The entire alignment is elevated.
For the purposes of CEQA, Metro must define one of the three routes as the Proposed Project — Metro ROW (Elevated/At-Grade). This is referred to as the Proposed Project in the Draft EIR as it is alignment that has been studied and advanced over the years. This term does not convey any preference or recommendation by the Metro Board of Directors, who will ultimately vote on a preferred route for the project called the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA).
This video shows a conceptual design of all three routes:
We extended the public review period to be 61-days to allow everyone to have plenty of time to review the Draft EIR and comment on it.
Metro is gathering input during the public review and comment period via public hearings, email, by mail and by phone. Four in-person public hearings and one virtual public hearing will be held in February with dates and times listed below.
A court reporter will be present at each hearing. During the first hour of the meeting, Metro will host an open house to answer questions. This will be followed by a presentation and public comment. During the public comment, questions will not receive a response but will be addressed in the Final EIR, which is anticipated to be released in 2024. Comments can be submitted via the following methods:
Email: greenlineextension@metro.net
Project voicemail: 213.922.4004
Mail: Georgia Sheridan, Project Manager
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
One Gateway Plaza, Mail Stop: 99-22-3
Los Angeles, CA 90012
To help support the Draft EIR, a project StoryMap has been developed to provide more information on the project, view the Draft EIR and alignment maps and learn more about light rail. Visit bit.ly/cletstory.
Below are the details on the public hearings:
Public Hearing 1: Lawndale
Wednesday, February 15, 5:30-8:30pm
Lawndale High School
Centinela Valley Center for the Arts
14901 S Inglewood Av Lawndale, CA 90260
Public Hearing 2: Virtual
Thursday, February 16, 11am–1pm
Zoom link: bit.ly/cletdeirmtg
Phone: 833.548.0282 (toll free)
Meeting ID: 895 3678 6223
Public Hearing 3: Redondo Beach
Tuesday, February 21, 5–8pm
Torrance Cultural Arts Center Toyota Meeting Hall
3330 Civic Center Dr Torrance, CA 90503
Public Hearing 4: Torrance
Wednesday, February 22, 5–8pm
Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center
1935 Manhattan Beach Bl Redondo Beach, CA 90278
Public Hearing 5: Lawndale
Saturday, February 25, 10am–1pm
Lawndale High School
Centinela Valley Center for the Arts
14901 S Inglewood Av Lawndale, CA 90260
In person public hearings are subject to change and may be held virtually based on changing COVID-19 health guidelines. All Metro meetings are accessible to persons with disabilities. Spanish translation provided. Other ADA accommodations and translations available by calling 323.466.3876 at least 72 hours in advance.
Metro will publish other project information of interest to the public on the project website at metro.net/clineext, including summaries of public outreach events and comments, ridership information, cost estimates, frequently asked questions, and information related to real estate needs, traffic, and parking.
Categories: Projects
Agree with the other post. Enough funds need to be found to extend this line a mile or so to OLD TOWN or DOWNTOWN Torrance. Everyone can park at the Torrance TC, but pedestrian access needs to be through OLD TOWN- also more points of interest. Make sure whatever is ultimately done, this line is set up to extend to Harbor City, Wilmington and Long Beach in the future. We already messed up not using the Harbor Sub from Inglewood along Slauson to the Blue/West Santa Ana branch area and on to Union Station. Lets not mess up the southern end of the very, very valuable (expensive) right of way paid for with our tax dollars
The video shows the “future” Redondo Beach Transit Center, but it’s actually set to open just a few days from now. By the time of Metro’s public hearings, you’ll have a better idea of how much rider traffic it might get.
Nah, it’s not really until this rail line open you’ll be seeing true ridership potential.
Back in the 1980s when express buses actually made a trip to the South Bay by bus more tolerable I could see how busy this transit center would be, but as of now there isn’t a single express bus line to directly connect to Downtown or even spots in between for commuters to use. Just a local line that if I recall, I took in 2013 and it took me 2 HOURS to go from the Galleria to Union Station.
Man the future of LAs infrastructure is dark and gloomy if people keep voting for these officials in.
What’s worse is there is no way to do a one more half-cent initiative to accelerate shovel ready projects by the end of 2020s to early 2030s just because of how badly Metro has already screwed up so badly they’ll be laughed out the building if they were to be trusted with more money.
You know, I would say go with the Hawthorne option if, AND ONLY IF the ROW is actually used for Express Metrolink service from Downtown – Slauson Junction, Inglewood, LAX, South Bay, Torrance and San Pedro. . . but Metro literally killed that potential reality so I’d say, stick it to the NIMBYs and stick to the ROW.
Metro censors any critical comments or comments that point out factual information. Thank you, Metro for restoring the publics faith in your bureaucracy as you choose to not post any comments that point out anything negative about the projects you insist using billions of our taxpayer money to fund, despite their awful performance and other higher priority corridors and opportunities. Heaven forbid Steve Hymon allows anything critical of Meteo to be posted on this site.
Can’t wait to ride this train to the giant Torrance “Transit Center” parking lot so I can then walk to the Chevron oil refinery down the road! What a great way to get people to ride transit, by building a billion dollar plus rail line that services parking lots and oil refineries, parallel to a freeway Metro wants to widen for more traffic as well, instead of places where transit actually succeeds. This doesn’t even serve Old Town Torrance, but at least it will ha ve plenty of parking to convince everyone in Torrance to ride transit, right?
Here we go again. What should be a relatively short, straight forward extension, is morphing into ugly long elevated routes down the center of Hawthorne Blvd- not pedestrian friendly and visually ugly.
Also, this right of way is Metro owned (Taxpayer paid for), we MUST , in times of tight budgets, use this paid for route. Build the most economical version of that route with all the appropriate, trenching, recycling existing bridges, sound walls and quiet zone. AND this should be an extension of the north/south “K” LINE, not an extension of the “C” line as South Bay riders need direct access to LAX via the People Move transfer station. The “C” line after the Aviation Station should turn north, not south and also head to the LAX People Mover Transfer station.
This would then provide 3 rail lines, one from the South, one from the North and one from the East all serving the airport. Lets not screw this short basic project up and lets speed it up. Metro projects take way too long to build.
I think the second option would be better above ground surface