At a gathering in Bellflower, CA, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, teamed up with top brass from LA Metro and an alliance of community leaders, announced the "Southeast Gateway Line" as the new moniker for the light rail line set to stretch from Downtown Los Angeles through Southeast LA, right to Artesia, as reported by a press release from Hahn's office.
The former "West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor" had locals and officials alike scratching their heads, but the new label, born out of a six-month contest with over 1,100 naming suggestions and 4,500 voters casting their choices, is meant to resonate more with future passengers and, according to Hahn, give the project the clout it needs for funding and recognition, "This rail line is going to be revolutionary for communities in Southeast LA and the Gateway Cities, but its bad name has held this project back,” Hahn said in the release, she continued to express her intention “I wanted to empower the future riders to pick a new name for this train – something they can connect with and that will help us deliver this project."
Deemed "revolutionary" by Hahn, the Southeast Gateway Line promises to connect neighborhoods where nearly half the population lives below the poverty line and where transit dependence is as vivid as the LA sunsets with one in five residents lacking personal transportation options, buses, and cars are dreams not easily obtained but the need for reliable, accessible public transit is certainly a reality.
And the timeline isn't in some far-off plan, the project is on track for groundbreaking this summer linking Artesia through Cerritos, Bellflower, Paramount, Downey, South Gate, Cudahy, Bell, Huntington Park, and Vernon to Union Station, a route that puts wheels under feet and could potentially transform daily routines for countless residents, with voter-backed sales tax measures—Measure R and Measure M—funneling nearly $2 billion into the construction phase of the project, this according to Hahn's press release.
