In the face of community pushback, the City of Inglewood has dropped plans a Vons supermarket on Manchester Avenue as part of its proposed automated people mover system, and will instead pursue an alternate location for its vehicle maintenance facility.
Southern California New Group reports that the city now intends to build the Inglewood Transit Connector's maintenance and storage facility on the same property as its Market Street Station. This would allow for the Vons, as well as other attached retail spaces, to remain in place.
A project representative told SCNG that the updated plan would avoid disruptions to more than 100 employees on the site, while also saving money, as the City of Inglewood would no longer have to acquire the Vons property. Nonetheless, 41 other businesses with more than 300 employees are expected to be displaced during the construction process, though the city intends to foot the cost for any moving expenses.
According to the report, three technologies are being considered for the people mover system, including a monorail which would be built by BYD, a rubber-tire tram proposed by Bombardier, and a cable pull system which would be built by Dopplemeyer. All alternatives involve automated vehicles traveling on an elevated, 1.6-mile guideway which would run above Market Street, Manchester Avenue, and Prairie Avenue. In addition to the northern terminus on Market Street adjacent to the K Line, plans also call for stops at Manchester Avenue and Hardy Avenue. That route would link Metro's Downtown Inglewood Station with SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers.
People mover mapCity of Inglewood
To date, Inglewood has secured more than $760 million in funding for the project, which has an estimated total price tag of $1.85 billion. The most recent windfall was a more than $400-million award from the California State Transportation Agency, which is intended to help Inglewood compete for a Federal New Starts grant.
Should the project secure Federal funding, construction could begin in 2024, with the system operating by the time the Summer Olympic Games return to Los Angeles in 2028.
When operational, the ITC is expected to run on normal headways of six minutes, with service as frequent as every two minutes during NFL events. Ridership estimates forecast that up to 414 passengers would use the system during weekday peak-hour conditions, with up to 11,450 passengers using the people mover during NFL events.
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- Inglewood Automated People Mover (Urbanize LA)
