The Los Ange­les Coun­ty Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty (Metro) opened the long-await­ed Region­al Con­nec­tor to the pub­lic on June 16, com­plete­ly redraw­ing Metro’s rail ser­vice map in the process.

“The 1.9 miles of new track laid allows light-rail trains to trav­el between Union Sta­tion and the busy 7th St./Metro Cen­ter Sta­tion in down­town LA’s Finan­cial Dis­trict,” accord­ing to an arti­cle by Bran­don Lewis for Mass Tran­sit mag­a­zine. “Bridg­ing the gap allows L.A. Metro to merge the hook-shaped L (Gold) line with the A (Blue) and E (Expo) lines, cre­at­ing two ser­pent-like train lines where there were once three.”

In effect, the two new­ly formed lines allow one-seat light rail rides from Azusa to Long Beach on the A Line, and East L.A. to San­ta Mon­i­ca on the E Line. The project over­came delays in 2019 and a law­suit in 2012 to come to fruition.

The new project also deliv­ered three new under­ground sta­tions to serve the new­ly formed A and B lines in downtown—the Lit­tle Tokyo/Arts Dis­trict Sta­tion, the His­toric Broad­way Sta­tion, and the Grand Avenue/Bunker Hill Sta­tion.  

Local cov­er­age of the Region­al Con­nec­tor’s con­tri­bu­tion to tran­sit in Los Ange­les is avail­able from L.A. Taco and the Los Ange­les Times [pay­wall]. See also Metro’s Region­al Con­nec­tor Tran­sit Project page for more infor­ma­tion.