LA Streetcar Passes Key Milestone

On November 29, a new streetcar system serving downtown Los Angeles achieved a major milestone when the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved the project’s environmental impact report and agreed on a preferred route. The project will take riders on a one-way 3.8-mile loop from the Civic Center, to the Convention Center area and through the Fashion District. Non-profit Los Angeles Streetcar, Inc. (LASI), a public-private partnership founded in 2009, represents the Downtown property owners and stakeholders advocating the project. Shiraz Tangri serves as General Counsel to LASI. LASI oversees the development, fundraising, planning, environmental review, engineering and outreach for the project. Click here for more information about the streetcar project.

The next step is securing the full funding for the project, which is expected to come from a combination of sales taxes, federal grants and support from the private sector. Much of that funding will come from California voters’ recent approval of Measure M, which will provide billions of dollars in funding for transit projects starting in 2017. If the project receives the allocated $200 million on an accelerated basis, the streetcar could be completed by 2020, with a projected 6,000 riders daily.

As explained by LA Councilman Jose Huizar, whose district includes downtown Los Angeles, “We’ve reached a very important milestone in what will be a transportation project that will link our regional transit system with destinations downtown.” He stated that the LA City Council’s approval “marks a very important milestone in bringing the beloved streetcar back to downtown Los Angeles.”