The Regional Connector opened on June 16, 2023. 🎉
It was a complete game-changer for the LA Metro system. Here's why.
This is a map of the LA Metro Rail system before June 2023.
The B and D Lines are heavy rail. The A E L Lines, as well as the C and K Lines, are light rail.
Notice the peculiar shape of the L Line. And notice how most of the lines seemed to originate or terminate downtown. A relic of the days when most people commuted downtown for work, this is in and of itself suboptimal, since many, or even most, people do not want to go downtown anymore, and because it created a bottleneck.
But let's take a closer look...
Even though these lines went downtown, they terminated in different locations.
This meant that if you were at the Natural History Museum and wanted to get to the Japanese American National Museum, you needed to:
Board the E Line at Expo Park/USC and ride it four stops to its terminus at 7th Street / Metro Center.
Get off the train, head downstairs, transfer to the B or D Line (arrives every 7.5 minutes if you were very lucky).
Take the B or D Line for three stops to the terminus at Union Station.
Get off the train, head upstairs, walk across the station to the platform of the L Line (arrived every 10 minutes if you were lucky).
Take the L Line one stop to Little Tokyo / Arts District.
This trip was less than 6 miles, but it could take upward of 45 minutes. And it was faster to walk some portions.
The Regional Connector project added a 1.9-mile tunnel to connect the disparate light-rail lines in Downtown.
As part of the project, the L Line was reconfigured. Here is its prior configuration.
And here is its new configuration.
The northern portion was converted to be part of the A Line, and the southern portion was converted to be part of the E Line.
Except one thing. The E Line adopted the gold color of the former L Line and became the E Line.
Since the L Line went away, a gold E was easier than an aqua E to differentiate from the blue A.
As a result, the A E and L Lines went from this...
...to this,
with the boomerang shape of the former L replaced by a more comprehensive A Line that runs roughly north-south and an E Line that runs roughly east-west.
Let's take a look at our example trip again.
With the Regional Connector completed now, you only need to...
...board the E Line at Expo Park/USC and ride seven stops until Little Tokyo / Arts District.
That's it. And it takes less than 20 minutes.
Here is a before-after look at the entire system with the Regional Connector marked in black:
It's a relatively short length of track, but it completely revolutionized and streamlined the LA Metro Rail system.
Here are some resources if you want to learn more: