Construction on LA Metro Gold Line extension to begin in 2020
Gabriel Cooper
Updated on March 22, 2026
Part of an occasional series on LA-area transit projects
LOS ANGELES — LA Metro’s extension of the Foothill Gold Line into San Bernardino County, which once appeared doomed by rising construction costs, will get underway next year with the award of a $1.2 billion design-build contract to Kiewit-Parsons.
The Foothill portion of the Gold Line connects Los Angeles Union Station with Pasadena, Monrovia and Azusa. The new extension, to be built in two phases, will add 9 miles to Pomona and 3.3 miles to Montclair.
Last year, the Gold Line, including the Foothill segment and East Los Angeles segment, carried 16 million riders.
The light-rail project hit a roadblock in late 2018, almost a year after it broke ground, when bids for the main contract came in $600 million higher than expected.
“When the initial bids came in, we realized that the construction market had changed drastically, and it happened very quickly,” explains Chris Burner, chief project officer for the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority. An overheated construction market, labor shortages, and rising materials costs contributed to the price spike. The Authority responded by developing a two-phase plan and completing a supplemental environmental impact report.
The Foothill Gold Line extension is one of 11 rail transit projects designated for completion in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. [See “LA Metro to prepare for 2028 Olympics with 11 rail projects,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 21, 2019.] Burner believes that factored into LA Metro’s decision to provide an additional $97 million earlier this year.
Unlike most other LA Metro construction projects, managed directly by the agency, the California state legislature created the independent Construction Authority in 1998 after Metro halted work on the initial section of the line from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena.
The authority completed that line in 2003 and extended it to Azusa in 2010, working with the same contractor that will build the new additions.
The light rail shares a 100-foot wide right-of-way owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA), parent organization of commuter railroad Metrolink. It currently contains a single-track freight line over which BNSF operates a weekday round trip to serve local customers. Metrolink uses a portion of the corridor.
When major construction work starts in 2020, “The first order of work that has to be done is the freight track has to be relocated,” Burner says. To accommodate the double-track light rail line, existing track will be shifted to one side, as has been the case previously in Azusa and Irwindale. “BNSF has been a very good partner and worked cooperatively,” Burner tells Trains News Wire.
Some 25 at-grade crossings between Azusa and Montclair will need to be rebuilt. All will have quad gates protecting both entry and exit lanes, and pedestrian gates. Other work includes new sidewalks and pathways for pedestrians that will meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards, along with adjacent road improvements.
Four new center-platform stations are to be built in the first phase of construction. East from Azusa, those will be in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne and Pomona. When completed, a trip from Pomona to Los Angeles Union Station will take 62 minutes.
The future extension to Montclair will have a station in Claremont and at the terminus.
That “opens up a lot of transit oriented development in and around the stations and provides an opportunity for the cities to take advantage of that,” says Burner. Surplus property at the future Glendora station already has residential development, as does a site adjacent to the Monrovia station.
Habib Balian, chief executive officer for the Construction Authority, told Los Angeles news radio station KNX1070, “As of 2016 about $7 billion in private investment already has been made in just a half mile radius of the Gold Line stations, and looking to the future, about $9 billion of additional investment from Arcadia to Montclair.”
Completion of the Pomona segment is scheduled for early 2025. Additional construction work will include fencing and walls all along the rail corridor, eight new light rail bridges and the requisite track, train control, communications and overhead power infrastructure.
Funding to build out to Montclair is not yet in place, but the design-build contract includes an option to construct the final piece if money is found by September 2021, allowing for completion in 2028. Failing that, a new bid would have to be secured.
“We’re very optimistic that we will be able to obtain that funding within the two years and get the extension completed out to Montclair,” Burner says.
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