LA Metro completes parking lot at Chatsworth Metrolink/Amtrak Station

On the fourth anniversary of the opening of the Los Angeles Metro Orange Line, Metro work crews have officially completed the first construction phase of the line's four-mile extension in the North San Fernando Valley: a parking lot at the Chatsworth Metrolink/Amtrak Station.

Sully-Miller Contracting
Co. has completed a 310-space north parking lot that will now accommodate
transit customers who normally park at Chatsworth Station’s south lot closest
to Lassen Street. The lot increases the total number of available parking
spaces at the station from 480 to 610, a 130-space increase. Portions of the
south parking lot will soon be closed for use as a staging area for the next
phase of construction at the location, which will include building a bridge
over Metrolink and Amtrak train tracks and Lassen Street as well as utility
relocations and street improvements at Lassen Street. Other station-specific
work includes Metrolink rail signal and at-grade crossing enhancements and construction
of the new Metro Orange Line station terminus.

The project was completed
successfully with the cooperation of the City of Los Angeles Department of
Transportation, which will operate the parking lot.

"In completing this
parking lot, we can now officially begin construction of the actual Orange Line
alignment between Canoga Park and Chatsworth," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky,
a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board Member. "We’re
fast approaching the day when we transform this tired old former railroad
right-of-way into a beautiful, functional Bus Rapid Transit line that will
benefit all regional bus and train commuters."

The north parking lot
includes lighting, landscaping, fencing and bio-cells – part of the project’s
storm water management system. A vital step in creating a "green
infrastructure," bio-cells slow down and filter the rainwater from the parking
lot before the water eventually flows into the Los Angeles River.

Metro will soon award a
Design-Build contract for the majority of construction work. Work will include
design and construction of the busway, new stations at Sherman Way (with
park-and-ride), Roscoe Boulevard, Nordhoff Street and Chatsworth Metrolink
Station. The existing Canoga park-and-ride lot will be modified with additional
station platforms. The contractor also will design and build a bridge over the
Los Angeles River, a crossing at the Santa Susana Wash, street improvements,
bicycle/pedestrian paths, a satellite bus parking facility, landscaping,
bio-swales and systems equipment.

The next phase of
construction work is scheduled to begin in early 2010. The project, expedited
by three years through the passage of the Measure R half-cent sales tax, is
scheduled to open in 2012.