Study Shows Limited Ridership Loss if No Crenshaw Station

Metro staff reports that they and their experts have concluded that there would be limited ridership loss to the Metro system if no subway station is built on Wilshire Boulevard between Bronson Avenue and Lorraine Boulevard, immediately adjoining the communities of Windsor Square, Wilshire Park, and Windsor Village. The news about ridership was presented during the April series of five public meetings held to update communities along the route of the proposed Purple Line Subway Extension from Western Avenue to Westwood and beyond.  In a slide shown at the meetings and available online here, Metro presented seven bullet points that reemphasized conclusions first revealed in a March 2010 community meeting held at Wilshire Methodist Church:

  • Public divided on need for station
  • Station spacing issue
  • Limited density around station
  • Crenshaw LRT not planned to extend north of Expo LRT
  • Even without station, construction staging to occur on Metro owned property
  • Limited ridership loss without the station

At the March 17 community meeting–and again in April–Metro predicted that, 25 years from now (in 2035), there would be 1300 fewer riders on the entire Metro Rail system if an additional station is NOT built at Crenshaw. Metro said that the cost to add a station to serve these 1300 people would be approximately $153,000,000.

The Windsor Square Association board of directors has regularly reviewed the idea of adding such a subway station ever since politicians (not transit planners) initiated the surprise concept in 1983. Our Association’s repeated conclusion—that adding such an extra station in a NON-Center so close to Western Avenue is inappropriate—has been substantiated by the passage of time. In recent years, it has become generally accepted that any future light rail extension of the Crenshaw Line now planned with a northern terminus at Crenshaw and Exposition should be further west, and NOT come to Wilshire and Crenshaw.

The WSA recognizes that, even with Measure R taxes for which we County residents have voted, funds to improve public transit are scarce. Those scarce funds are best utilized to keep extending the Purple Line as far west as possible. It would be a waste of money to build an extra, unneeded station at Crenshaw and Wilshire.