LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will receive $1.5 billion in federal grants and loans to complete the second phase of a subway line to Beverly Hills and Century City.
Metro officials are hoping to accelerate completion of the Purple Line extension, being constructed in three phases from Koreatown to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Brentwood, by 11 years to be ready for the 2024 Olympics. The International Committee is expected to choose between L.A., Budapest and Paris in September.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti , U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Metro officials announced the new funding during a Tuesday press conference.
"We are moving quickly to create the world-class transit system our people deserve, and these federal funds for the Purple Line extension will accelerate progress along the region's busiest transit corridor," said Garcetti, who is first vice chair of the Metro board.
The first phase, which will connect Koreatown with the mid-Wilshire District, is underway and scheduled to be completed by 2023. The now-funded second leg will add stations in Beverly Hills and Century City by 2026.
The third phase and final phase to the line's terminus at the Veteran's administration campus was expected to be completed in 2035. But officials have vowed to finish the line by 2024, so that if Los Angeles secures the Olympics for that year, visitors could ride from downtown to the University of California, Los Angeles.
L.A. Metro received a $1.187 billion construction grant agreement through the Federal Transit Administration's capital investment grant program, as well as approval for a $307 million loan through the Department of Transportation's innovative Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program — for a total of $1.487 billion. The project also will receive $169 million in federal funding through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program.
Metro will contribute $836 million in local matching for the line from Measure R approved by voters in 2008 and recently-passed Measure M, which includes $1 billion to accelerate the Purple Line, a subway primarily underneath Wilshire Boulevard that will connect downtown to West Los Angeles.
Metro is a multimodal transportation agency that transports about 1.3 million passengers daily on a fleet of 2,200 clean air buses and six rail lines.
