GOLD LINE BENEFITS FROM LAX-EXPANSION DREAD;
Light Rail: The Route Could Connect Pasadena With La/ontario Airport In 20 Years, Planners Say.
Opposition to a possible airport expansion in Los Angeles could inadvertently boost an effort to extend light rail service from Pasadena to LA/Ontario International Airport.
The result would be more transportation options for Inland commuters, officials said Wednesday. But they cautioned that extending the Metro Gold Line to the airport could be at least 20 years away.
"The reality is, if we don't start now, it will be 50 years," Ontario Mayor Paul Leon told a group of about 100 government and transportation leaders who gathered at the airport to kick off a 14-month study. "We must get prepared for the future. The beginning starts today."
The Gold Line light rail, which is smaller than a Metrolink train and is propelled by electricity instead of diesel engines, already offers a transportation alternative between Los Angeles' Union Station and Pasadena.
An additional segment to Azusa is planned to open in 2011, and another segment to Montclair is scheduled to open in 2014. Those two extensions, together an estimated 24 miles, are expected to cost almost $1.2 billion. Construction on the Pasadena-Azusa portion is scheduled to start next year.
The final eight-mile link, to Ontario airport, is expected to cost $400 million to $800 million. Such a high cost meant the proposed link could have been a tough sell if not for a recent endorsement from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, officials said.
Villaraigosa, who faces stiff opposition to expansion of Los Angeles International Airport from surrounding neighborhoods, has pledged to instead steer aviation growth to another city-owned airport - LA/Ontario.
Villaraigosa has recently said that a Gold Line extension would be a key to expanding passenger counts at the Ontario airport from about 7 million passengers per year to about 30 million. The mayor has tried unsuccessfully to shift air traffic to the less-congested Ontario facility.
San Bernardino Associated Governments, the county's transportation planning agency, has agreed to contribute $250,000 to a planning effort designed to make a case for the Ontario extension.
Another regional planning agency, the Southern California Association of Governments, has kicked in another $250,000.
"This is seed money that is going to be very important to the project," said Habib Balian, chief executive officer of the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, which is planning the project.
That study is intended to examine potential routes and gather public input on station locations and other issues.
The route would provide the first rail access to a major airport in Southern California. It also would provide a complement to Metrolink rail service, which runs between San Bernardino and Los Angeles with Inland stops in Rialto, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga.
"The challenges before you are immense," Barstow Mayor Lawrence Dale said at the event Wednesday morning.
Reach Phil Pitchford at 951-368-9475 or ppitchford@PE.com or visit his blog at www.PE.com/blogs/commuting
PHIL PITCHFORD, THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
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