It's not just the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that would need some work done if LA is selected to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Now that Los Angeles is the U.S. candidate for the bid, city officials are looking at the timelines of planned (and necessary) infrastructure and deciding what needs to be sped up to make the games better. Public transportation is, no surprise, one of those priorities. Metro has applied for a federal program that would expedite two major transportation projects so that they would open in time for the 2024 Olympics, should LA be selected as the host city, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Those projects are the Purple Line Extension to the Westside and the Crenshaw/LAX line that would connect to an airport transit hub. The importance of completing the Purple Line Extension in time for the games is that there would be a subway stop in Westwood Village near the UCLA campus, where Olympic events would be held. Currently, that isn't slated to open until 2036—12 years after the games. Completion of the Crenshaw/LAX line is scheduled for 2028.
What this would require is a lot of federal support—read: money. The entire Purple Line Extension budget is $6.3 billion, and about 75 percent of it is funded through a half-cent sales tax increase that LA voters approved in 2008 (Measure R). Metro is seeking the rest of the money through matched federal funds and other sources, such as local taxpayer revenue. The host of the 2024 games won't be selected and announced until 2017.
Here’s a map of the expanded Purple Line:
And the Crenshaw/LAX Project:
