LA Metro upgrades 27 Blue Line crossings

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has wrapped up a project to boost pedestrian safety at 27 Blue Line grade crossings.

The California Public Utilities Commission this week brought the project to a close by providing final approvals for the work, Metro officials wrote in a blog post.

Construction began in 2015 in Long Beach, California, and continued north. The safety upgrades include pedestrian swing gates and crossing gates, new and wider walkways, new continental crosswalk pavement striping, roadway improvements and improved signage.

Crews also built curb ramps that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, agency officials said.

The project is part of the effort to upgrade the Blue Line, Metro's oldest rail line that opened in 1990. Unlike the agency's more recent rail projects, the Blue Line was built almost entirely at street level, with one stretch running alongside active freight-rail tracks.

The upgrades are aimed at making the line safer and bringing it "up to the specs found on other Metro light-rail lines," agency officials wrote in the blog.

In early 2019, the agency aims to kick off major work for a larger $1.2 billion project to modernize the Blue Line.