A new “light rail on wheels” promises to cut commuters time on bus routes through the county’s busiest corridors from Los Feliz to South Los Angeles by as much as 17 minutes.
Preconstruction work will soon get started on the new Vermont Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), per a notice from LA Metro.
The project involves installing a 12-mile stretch along the roadway from Sunset Boulevard to 120th St by altering the existing road to allow for dedicated BRT lanes, per Metro.
The dedicated BRT lanes will use the “travel lane adjacent to the parking lane in each direction,” so as to not disturb parking for business in the area.
The BRT lanes will allow the buses to “move through the corridor faster and more reliably,” along with “transit signal priority” per the agency.
Crews are expected to get to work “locating and identifying underground utilities through the process of digging small, controlled, exploratory holes to physically locate and verify underground utilities (pipes, cables) before excavation,” starting Monday May 11, according to the notice.
Officials have promised that once construction is completed on the Vermont corridor, it will slash existing end-to-end commute time from 70 minutes down to 53, for the nearly 36,000 daily transit trips through the area, per Secret Los Angeles.
The notice also said commuters should expect some closures once construction finally gets underway on the expansion later this year, including Vermont Ave traffic being reduced in both directions during the day, parts of the sidewalk being closed and the right and left turns being closed intermittently. There could also be parking restrictions.
Once completed the new BRT corridor will look and operate similar to a light rail with “enhanced stations” along the way, offering shelters, seating, lighting and “and real-time arrival displays,” the report noted.
According to the Federal Transportation administration, the project is a “key component” to the city’s “overall mobility solution for the 2028 Olympic Games,” with the route a main corridor to many of the region’s destinations like the University of Southern California (USC), museums and sports venues.
The idea to improve routes on Vermont avenue goes back to 2016, when LA voters approved funding for the transportation project, per the report.
The new project is expected to be completed by 2028, with the possibility of converting it in the future for a light rail or subway.
And this is just the start of projects to improve transportation in the city ahead of the World Cup and the Olympics, with a major celebration set to kick off Friday, May 8, when Section 1 of the LA Metro D Line Extension officially opens to the public at 12:30 p.m.
The nearly four-mile subway expansion adds three brand-new underground stations along Wilshire Boulevard, giving riders a direct connection from Koreatown to the edge of Beverly Hills in about 21 minutes from Union Station.
The opening has already exploded online thanks to Metro’s wildly viral “Ride the D” t-shirt campaign, which turned the long-awaited rail launch into a social media frenzy earlier this year.
The Post reached out to LA Metro for further comment.