For daily commuters driving between the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles, the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass during rush hour is usually a nightmarish and frustrating experience.
The 10-mile stretch of the 405 Freeway between the 10 and 101 freeways often sees more than 300,000 cars per day. And according to a 2019 study commissioned by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, it takes afternoon peak period commuters on average 48 minutes to drive those 10 miles northbound from the 10 Freeway to the 101 Freeway. And if there are any mishaps along the route, the trip could easily take more than an hour.
Faced with such epic congestion, it’s been a decades-long dream for both commuters and Metro planners to build a rail line connecting the San Fernando Valley with L.A.’s job-rich Westside. But the complexity and sheer cost of building rail through or under the Santa Monica Mountains kept those rail dreams off the table until nearly 10 years ago.
That’s when Metro invited innovative private proposals to address the challenge of bringing rail to the Sepulveda Pass.
In 2019, Metro tried something unprecedented: it awarded contracts to two contractor teams that came up with proposals and invited them to continue refining their proposals until Metro completed an environmental impact report. Only then would Metro throw in its lot with one of the contractor teams.
Metro awarded $63.6 million to a consortium led by Chinese electric vehicle-maker BYD that had put forward a trio of mostly above-ground monorail proposals. And Metro awarded a $69.9 million contract to a consortium led by Reston, Virginia-based engineering and construction giant Bechtel, that had put forward a pair of heavy rail/subway options.
“We wanted private sector innovation as early as possible in the process, to identify strategies to improve performance, reduce costs and accelerate the project delivery schedule,” said Sharon Gukin, deputy chief executive for Metro. “We decided to proceed with two uniquely different technologies for addressing the needs through the (Sepulveda) corridor.”
Both teams have since further refined their proposals and sent them on through to Metro, which is now in the final stages of crafting a massive environmental impact report that will look at each of the options. That report, which will also consider a third heavy-rail alternative being developed separately by Metro, is due out this spring.
After the report’s release, Metro will take further comments and then staff will recommend that the Metro board select one of the consortia as the prime contractor team for the rest of the project going forward.
Concurrent with the environmental report, Metro will also release its cost projections for each of the alternatives. Those figures, especially for the more costly subway options, could be eye-popping; outside estimates have predicted the cost of the all-underground option at more than $20 billion.
Looking ahead, Metro has yet to give a construction start date.
As for when a rail line would actually open, on its project fact page, Metro says between 2033 and 2035. However, given the current status and the expectation that groundbreaking is at least two years away, that time frame is optimistic, especially for the heavy rail alternatives.
In the distant future, Metro is keeping open the possibility of extending whichever rail option it chooses south to the Metro Airport Connector station near Los Angeles International Airport. Metro’s fact sheet says an LAX extension could open by 2059.