Conservation, Recreation, Education And Transportation Expo Greenway

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CREATE EXPO GREENWAY
for CONSERVATION, RECREATION, EDUCATION AND TRANSPORTATION: Expo Greenway

Metro (formerly MTA) committed to “planning principles” for Phase I of the Mid-City/Exposition Light Rail Transit Project currently under construction.

Calling the project the “Exposition Transit Parkway,” Metro explained:

“The concept for the Exposition Transit Parkway has historical roots in Olmsted and Bartholemew’s plan for ‘Parks Playgrounds and Beaches of Los Angeles.’ This comprehensive master plan, published in 1930, describes existing and proposed recreational open spaces and the parkways that were meant to link them. Translating this planning ideal for an urban transit parkway into the 21st century suggests a new set of guiding principles.”

Metro committed to the following “Planning Principles” for Phase I (Mid-City/Exposition LRT Project, Final EIS/EIR, section 2.4.2.1.1f Planning Principles, p. 2.4-11):

· To “establish a multi-modal transit corridor combining a light rail transit alignment, a bikeway, streets and pedestrian linkages in a safe, balanced and cohesive parkway setting,”

· To “develop a transit parkway that encourages links, buffers, borders, paths and edges from the parkway into diverse communities along the alignment,” and

· To develop designs that “promote sustainability of natural resources.”





The broad and natural Exposition Right of Way (ROW) south and west of Cheviot Hills provides a unique opportunity to put this public land to several simultaneous, beneficial uses consistent with Metro’s Planning Principles while connection communities.
This section of the ROW between the Rosa Parks (formerly Santa Monica) Freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard is uniquely wide – up to 200 feet wide. (Light Rail trains only use about 30 feet of that space.) Most of the ROW in this area has not been sold off, narrowed or encroached upon by Exposition Boulevard – unlike sections further east. The City of Los Angeles has retained much of this land (or easements on it), so there is ample room for multiple uses.