This train line can take you to the Grove, Beverly Center and Cedars-Sinai. Is it LA’s ‘missing link’?

In the decades since Los Angeles began building a modern rail network, officials have been waiting for the moment when the system is big enough, and covers enough places, to be a viable alternative to driving a car.

For sponsors, Metro’s new plan to expand the K Line North — which aims to increase ridership on the light rail to 100,000 a day — would be a big step toward building a culture of mass transit in LA.

The K Line extended subway project, which the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board is scheduled to vote on this week, would extend the existing K Line from Crenshaw/Expo to Hollywood.

The proposed 9.7-mile Metro line from San Vicente to Fairfax would add nine stations and connect Angelenos with major employment centers like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and popular areas like West Hollywood, the Pacific Design Center and the Grove. A tenth station will be built at the Hollywood Bowl. It will also significantly strengthen LA County’s extensive rail network, transportation experts say, by connecting four major rail lines and six busiest bus lines.

“It’s going to really change the demographics of LA,” Jacob Wasserman, research program manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, said of the K Line extension. “It’s creating this great rail network, so you can go anywhere in the city with just one transfer by rail. … It’s going to change the way people think about the city they live in or work in.”

Los Angeles has spent billions investing in light rail infrastructure over the past four decades, but it still struggles to get more people to ride. Other line openings have come with hopes and hype, but some view the K Line extension as unique, in part because it will connect to a larger network that now includes a key subway line through downtown LA and, in May, a long-awaited subway connecting Koreatown to the Wilshire/La Cienega area and eventually to Beverly Hills.

The Wilshire/Fairfax Metro station is planned for the D Line.

(Etienne Laurent/Los Angeles Times)

“LA is starting a kind of grand experiment: Can they rebuild a commuter rail system that didn’t grow around the car, but expanded around the car?” Wasserman said. “If it works here, it’s a model of Phoenix and Houston and all kinds of modern American cities, which have not grown up in transportation, but they can fit in.”

Metro has been a national leader for the past few decades in building rail transit, said Ethan Elkind, author of “Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City.” But the rail network still struggles to attract a critical mass of new riders and get drivers out of their cars, in part because the region is overcrowded and key areas, like West Hollywood, are left out.

“It’s kind of a missing link in the system, in a very densely populated part of town,” Elkind said of the proposed K Line extension.

But the project, estimated to cost between $11 billion and $15 billion, is far from a done deal.

If Metro’s board votes Thursday in favor of the San Vicente K Line extension, its approval will depend on local funding: West Hollywood will have to work with LA County to establish an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, a public financing mechanism that allows it to dedicate a portion of future growth in property tax revenue to support the project, providing at least a 25% funding ratio.

West Hollywood leaders are big supporters of the northward extension of the K Line. But not all citizens are there. Some question how the small town of about 35,000 people will raise its share of the funds for the project. Some in Mid-City are adamantly opposed to a boring tunnel under their historic homes.

West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman told The Times that the K Line extension will create “unprecedented opportunities” for people across the region and that his city is committed to working with Los Angeles and LA County to come up with local funding.

At a Metro Planning and Planning Committee meeting last Wednesday, LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, former mayor of West Hollywood, described the K Line extension as “one of the most transformative rail projects in Metro history.”

In the past few years, Metro has explored two other possible fully underground lines: Fairfax, a nearly eight-mile line with seven stations, and La Brea, a six-mile line with six stations. But it decided that the long alignment of San Vicente-Fairfax offers a large number of advantages as it connects with a high number of stations, including major job centers like Cedars-Sinai, and regional areas like the Grove and the former city of CBS Television.

The K Line extension will connect commuters to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a major service center in the region.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Georgia Sheridan, executive director of Metro’s Countywide Planning and Special Projects, said last week that the tubes will be built in three sections using boring machines 40 to 120 feet underground, with the first section connecting the E line to the D line. Each part will take eight to 12 years to build.

Sheridan assured residents that a Metro tunnel safety report found that modern tunnel construction methods are “very safe and very effective.” Under Mid-City’s historic sites, he said, the tunnels will be 80 to 100 feet underground.

The K Line extension will run near the Grove shopping center.

(Caruso)

“At this depth, there would be no noise and no vibration,” said Sheridan, noting that the Metro had entered the same soil conditions at the same depth without settling problems. “We have never had any property damage.”

But still, some residents spoke against the project.

“I support public transit,” said the Lafayette Square resident, “but not support any tunnel under our historically preserved neighborhood and easements that will affect our homes and disrupt the quality of life in this area.”

After public comment, the Metro Planning and Planning Committee, which was supposed to vote to approve the plan, did not vote. Instead, it referred the decision to the Metro board for a final vote on Thursday.

Jonathan Finestone, president of the West Hollywood West Residents Assn., told The Times that the project was funded by developers and unions and came with little public consultation. He is afraid that as soon as Metro announces new stations, i earth sign Swith us BI’m sick A 79-unit housing bill passed last year that overrides local zoning laws to increase housing density near transit areas. it would cause “overdevelopment and overcrowding” of West Hollywood.

He also asked how West Hollywood, which has annual budget of $202 millionwill finance its part of the work.

“They’re going to have to tax people,” said Finestone.

David Fenn, West Hollywood’s chief planner, told The Times that the city is not considering a sales tax increase. He also said West Hollywood would not pay the equivalent of $4 billion, or a quarter of the project’s cost. The 25 percent local funding, he said, would not be a West Hollywood project alone and would likely include a combination of contributions from regional partners, such as the Westside Area Council of Governments, LA County and the city of LA.

Proponents of the project say the San Vicente-Fairfax route will benefit not only West Hollywood residents but low-income Angelenos throughout the region. About two-thirds of the proposed daily trips on the proposed K Line northward extension would be made by low-income people, many of whom do not own cars.

Metro’s goal, Horvath told The Times, is to create a system that people will use and prioritize that residents rely on as their primary form of transportation. Cedars-Sinai, he notes, is a regional destination — not just for workers, but for many South LA residents who rely on it for health care and will only hire if they have reliable transportation.

“This connects communities that were once segregated, and helps connect communities that were historically segregated with job opportunities, health facilities and support,” said Horvath.

The K Line expansion is part of a major wave of investment in LA’s light rail system. Metro opened the LAX/Metro transit centerwhich brings the C and K lines closer to the airport. And more is on the way. In January, Metro approved the plan extend the K Line south to Torrance. In May, the Metro will be opened the first phase of the D Line subway expansion a distance of 5.1 miles between downtown Los Angeles and Koreatown.

But while some of LA’s transportation plans are being accelerated to improve the region’s transportation infrastructure in time for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, others won’t happen for years. I Southeast Gateway Linea new 14.5-mile light rail line connecting the A line to Artesia that will serve mostly upscale Latino communities in southeast LA County, is not scheduled to open until 2035. Groundbreaking for the first phase of the K Line’s northern extension is not expected until 2041.

Elkind said there’s no doubt the K Line’s northern extension will have more ridership and provide an important north-south connection in an area that has been underserved for decades.

But the project’s ability to truly transform LA, he said, depends on how the land is developed around the stations.

“Whether it really makes a big difference or not, I think, depends on what happens to the land use around the station. … If you just build the rail, but you close off the opportunities to develop walkable development around the rail stations, you’re not getting the benefits of the rail.”