The agency driving construction of the L Line from Azusa to Pomona is backing away from a plan to build parking structures at five future light-rail stations in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, nearly cutting in half the number of parking spaces for the project.
Under a new plan unveiled this past week, the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority proposes surface parking lots to replace the structures that were originally planned for stations in Glendora, La Verne, San Dimas and Pomona. The planned station in Claremont, which would be the L Line’s final stop in Los Angeles County, may get a parking structure or a combination of surface parking and leased spaces nearby.
Those changes mean there would be fewer parking spaces at each of the five stations along the extension of the L Line, formerly the Gold Line, the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority announced on Wednesday, June 24.
Under the original plan, the five stations had a combined 3,570 parking spaces. Changes proposed by the Construction Authority, however, reduce that number to 1,959.
Lisa Levy Buch, chief communications officer for the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority, said Metro, the operator of the light-rail system, told the authority it was “building too much parking.” Metro wants to be more eco-friendly, Buch said, and recommended re-purposing land near the five stations for housing.
“Being the only Metro rail line in the whole system that has parking at every station, they were looking at trends in parking and looking to spend more wisely with this project,” Bush said of Metro’s recommendations. “These potential modifications don’t change the timeline of the completion of this project.”
The Claremont station would see the biggest decrease in parking, going from 1,100 planned parking spaces to 539. Still, the station would offer more parking than its counterparts along the light-rail extension.
The Pomona station, meanwhile, would see one of the most significant changes to the location of its parking, which would move from the north to the south side of the light-rail line to leave room for a pedestrian walkway on North Garey Avenue and West Santa Fe Street. The walkway would connect parking directly to the rail platform.
The changes fall in line with a parking program adopted by Metro last year. The initiative aims to preserve flexibility of the land near stations for future use and provide long-term cost savings due to lower maintenance costs, according to the agency.
Buch said her team is getting feedback from cities along the L Line extension about possible changes to parking and will take their input into consideration moving forward.
“We will get their feedback and they will get a chance to review these modifications,” she said. “A lot of meetings have been held about this and they’ve seen the latest plans earlier this month.”
The proposed modifications are not yet final, and are subject to environmental review for their impacts on housing, air quality and climate change, among others.
The public has until July 8 to send feedback or make recommendations on the proposed parking changes.
The cost of the L Line extension to the San Bernardino County line has grown considerably in recent years. The 12.3-mile extension from Azusa to Claremont was originally budgeted at $1.4 billion but two years later increased to $2.1 billion, and that only gets the light-rail to Pomona. Another $450 million is needed by October 2021 to push the extension into Claremont and possibly Montclair in San Bernardino County.
Kiewit-Parsons, the firm building the project, is expected to start major construction of the L Line extension to Pomona starting in July 2020, with completion expected in 2025.
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Parking at light-rail stations along L Line extension could be cut in half - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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