This topic will cover construction updates and related information for the Los Angeles County METRO Expo Line. Phase 2 includes building stations, trackage and other facilities west from Culver City to the terminus in downtown Santa Monica. The extension should be ‘ready for use’ by early 2016-ish. By contrast to the first phase build from downtown where most of the adjacent neighborhood is single family homes, this part of the county has more ‘medium rise’ office building new in the last 30 years. Many entertainment and tech businesses call Santa Monica home.
LA Metro Library EXPO photo set on Flickr (link) This extensive collection includes other photo sets related to Metro projects and predecessors like the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway. WARNING - you may spend many hours browsing here.
Due to construction interference and very limited parking to begin with, many areas cannot be photographed by ‘civilians’ at this time.
The first pic looks east from the Palms rec center pedestrian bridge toward the I-10 tunnel.
The center wire/light pole bases don’t look centered in the ROW, but that could be an illusion. The last occupants of this ROW were Southern Pacific locals serving a few customers west of the I-405 and, at one time, even a branch along Sepulveda north and then east on Santa Monica Blvd.
The RR bridge over Sepulveda Blvd has been built but not the east ramp, where the ROW is occupied temporarily by LA city parking nazi vehicles.
The future entrance to the Sepulveda Blvd platform:
The design challenge I wanted to see was how the ROW will pass under the wide I-405 freeway and then over Sawtelle Blvd immediately to the west. It still looks like a tight fit:
Just to the west, the long bridge over Pico Blvd is mostly complete:
Looking east from the Barrington Ave grade crossing, it is surprising how two LRV tracks make the narrow PE ROW look spacious:
The bridge over Bundy Drive looks pretty complete, squeezing by some newer office buildings:
East of Stuart Street the new EXPO line maintenance yard is being built. Cars will no longer have to overnight at the Blue line yard in north Long Beach.
Further west (no photo taken) the EXPO ROW changes from the old PE to the center of Colorado Blvd and continues to the end at 4th Street. At this time, it does not look like Colorado will be widened by demolishing adjacent buildings - most are built close to the lot edge.
I am vaguely familiar with the Pacific Electric route map of old from downtown Los Angeles to the Santa Monica area. There were two (sometimes three) lines between those points.
Recently, I had opportunity to traverse Venice Blvd. west of the I-405 Freeway and noted that that is a divided roadway, obviously the route of one of those decades ago PE lines. I take it the line you posted about was the one some distance north of Venice Blvd.
If you have any historic background information about the line you are now post covering, I sure would like hear about it in comprehending your coverage area.
The Wikipedia article on the Santa Monica Air Line gives a good historical synopsis. Unlike most of the Pacific Electric, this line has a freight heritage - it was built by the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad to bring ore to ships at the new Santa Monica harbor. The new Los Angeles harbor in San Pedro brought about the formers decline after 1897 and the parent Southern Pacific swapped the line to the Los Angeles Pacific (later PE) in 1908.
The east end of the original line turned north along San Pedro St and ended at a depot at 5th Street. After the 1877 purchase SP extended the line east to Alameda St (SP main) and what is today ‘J’ yard. Today the section of the line east of Flower St is unused for railroad purposes.
After a two month hiatus the great photographer Alan Weeks has uploaded some more photos of the Expo Line phase 2 construction. No change in Flickr behavior, the only sort is by upload date so here is the latest (last) page of the set:
I thought the extension was going to bypass the PE ROW through Cheviot Hills because they were making a major NIMBY stink up? Glad it is going through there, makes reuse of the old PE route.
That was the case several years ago, but long story short, the NIMBYs lost the battle! The NIMBY alternate route through Venice would have ended up costing more, with a lower ridership and a slower travel time.
IMO the route tradeoff is still debatable. Venice and Lincoln Blvd have huge apartment density offset by lack of employment hubs. Bundy and 26th St stations have good nearby employment hubs but it remains to be seen if more of the ‘professional’ demographic will / can take public transit to there. I agree that for the short term the better route was chosen.
I predict that the downtown SM station could be the #1 Metro Rail destination. Weekday pedestrian traffic is phenomenal there even today. OTOH Expo could show a major Metro weakness - north south bus service west of La Brea. Now more back to topic.
East of Military Ave trackwork looks almost complete and they are making great progress with the catenary - need to energize it and keep those s******* copper thieves away.
But the NIMBY alternate routing would have only applied in the area between the current Culver City station and the 405 Freeway. Everything west of the 405 followed the original plan,
IIRC one of the earliest proposals followed Venice to Lincoln and north to downtown S.M. I can’t find any published reference to it. Oh, well. [#dots]
BTW ground was just broken for the downtown ‘Regional Connector’ that will convert the existing Blue, Gold and Expo LR lines into two lines (one east - west, one south - northish).
This will eliminate the need to use the Red Line as an intermediate connection. Sticking with ‘the grid’ should also improve bus connection options.
Thinking out loud, somewhere down the road many stations will have to ‘change color’.
UPDATE: Here is a link to an early Edison video of the Santa Monica end of the line. It appears that the former LA&IR route is now the end of Interstate 10 turning into Pacific Coast Highway.
Looking at some of the latest construction photos, I’m still wondering about future track maintenance. It appears that from 17th Street west to line end the rails are totally ‘cast in concrete’:
When / if the rails get worn enough to need replacing, isn’t jackhammering all of that concrete out going to be very time consuming and disruptive (and of course expensive)? To the LR construction experts - if I’m overlooking something, please advise.
The 25 year old Blue Line has been receiving some upgrades recently including replacement of ‘corroded rail’ from Willow St to downtown Long Beach. I don’t remember if they used a similar rail anchoring technique.
In reviewing the photo at the link in the post just above, it looks like that ‘in the concrete’ track is not in the concrete at all, but merely panels on the track that can be replaced as needed.
I’ve seen few expansion joints in the concrete, so everything must be anchored down real securely ala CWR. At 6th Street they have a crossover cast flush:
Girder rail embedded in concrete has been standard construction for in-street track since the cable railway era. In the streetcar era the concrete pour often extended only half way up the rail, with bricks or stone pavers making up the top layer. Girder rail stands higher than ordinary rail, and usually has the flangeway rolled as part of the rail. In the photos here, it looks like ordinary T-rail is used with the flangeway cast into the concrete.
