A new Metro presentation offers a closer look at the transportation agency's plans for a bus rapid transit line along Vermont Avenue.

The project, a component of 2016's Measure M, would span more than 12 miles of Vermont Avenue between Hollywood Boulevard in Los Feliz and 120th Street in unincorporated Athens. This corridor currently sees 36,000 daily boardings, making it the busiest bus route in Metro's network.

Rendering of Vermont BRT segment from 4th Street to 1st Street looking northMetro

Metro intends to build the project as end-to-end side-running bus rapid transit, converting the right most travel lane to a full time bus-only lane for the full length of the corridor. According to the presentation, this will allow other local and Metro bus lines which run on Vermont Avenue to make use of the new lanes.

Dedicated lanes are expected to increase ridership on the Vermont corridor to more than 66,000 daily passengers - more than 12,000 of whom would be new daily riders to Metro's system. Additionally, the project would cut bus travel times from 70 minutes to 53 minutes, a reduction of 24 percent.

In addition to dedicated lanes, the project would also include new station amenities to rail stations, such as station canopies with signage and next bus information.

Vermont Transit Corridor mapMetro

In a different presentation earlier this year, Metro announced plans to commence temporary improvements to bus service on Vermont in 2025, including 2.75 miles of peak-hour bus lanes between Hollywood and Wilshire Boulevards and four miles of bus-only lanes between Gage and the Vermont/Athens C Line Station. A second phase of the project would connect those two segments by 2028, just in time for the Olympics.

Even farther out on the horizon, Metro has plans for a rail line along Vermont to the south of Wilshire. A heavy rail line could carry as many as 144,000 daily passengers, but would not start until 2067 at the earliest based on the Measure M expenditure plan.

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