Email to Metro Board and Response to Hawthorne Motion

Via Email to LA Metro Board

On behalf of South Bay Forward, we re-submit our support letter for Item 11: Hybrid LPA. We are in strong support of the staff recommendation and the years of process, evaluation, and input that has been poured into this recommendation. This option provides the most housing, community, jobs, mobility, and environmental benefits and makes the best use of regional investment in transit centers and multimodal accessibility. We have followed the DEIR and FEIR process closely as an advocacy organization for the past 3 years. After 46 years of study and planning, we urge you to stay the course with the staff recommendation as it offers for the best possible path towards completion and realization of this long-promised Measure M and R project to the South Bay and 1.5 million new riders. It provides critical upgrades to the rail corridor that Metro owns and will make the corridor both safer and quieter for residents, while providing neighborhood-accessible trails and an accessibility-friendly station in Redondo Beach with parking and restrooms.

As a CBO, we work on a volunteer basis to provide outreach about the FEIR with our South Bay Bicycle Block Party and South Bay Transit Summit event held in North Redondo Beach and Torrance, respectively. We have performed outreach in the cities of Lawndale, Lomita, Long Beach, and Hermosa Beach and hosted events and tabling at Torrance Transit Center. We also worked to build support and consensus across allied organizations with our South Bay On Board Coalition, in broad support of the FEIR and Hybrid LPA for certification. Our CBO statement:

South Bay Forward has strongly supported the C Line Extension project since our inception in 2023. In Spring 2025, we were chosen by Metro in an open selection process for community-based organizations (CBOs) to provide outreach to the South Bay communities about the C Line Extension project. We are one of seven CBOs providing outreach.

In our role as CBO, we have tabled and hosted community events throughout the South Bay sharing information about the project and Final EIR. This has included delivering information and hosting talks at our annual events like the South Bay Transit Summit and Bicycle Block Party and tabling along the corridor in Redondo Beach and Torrance. We are reimbursed for materials we use in our in-person outreach.

Metro does not require us to take or promote any position on the project or the proposed alternatives, and our support for the project and the Hybrid Alternative has remained the same since becoming a CBO. Our work is volunteer-based and no member or volunteer receives direct payment for work we provide.

We are against the last-minute motion Item 11.1: Hawthorne Option on which we were not consulted and which goes against decades of planning and years of professional work and expertise and a betrayal of our trust in the public process and support for the Hybrid LPA. We were preparing for a vote to certify and approve the LPA that was selected by the Board and evaluated in the Final EIR. We were not preparing to relitigate the case for Hawthorne vs ROW/LPA once again as we did in May 2024, and are dismayed at the very little noticing that we have had to prepare our comments and to present the case once again. We are concerned this option will, at best, push the project back by 4 or more years, or at worst, put the project in perpetual limbo with multiple yearslong review processes in NEPA, adding complexity and timelines that will only further delay much-needed transit to our subregion. We have to be realistic with timelines in this federal administration. This option creates major impacts to businesses, places transit riders on a high-injury corridor putting pedestrians and riders at risk of serious injury, and requires complex utility relocations of high-voltage transmission lines and major regional storm drains. This shift was done without consulting Torrance stakeholders and business owners along Hawthorne Blvd. We are highly concerned by this unusual process and what little time we have had to respond to it and feel this is not the proper way to conduct major planning decisions costing $2-3 billion and after decades of study. This process and decision should not be so high-stakes nor make or break.

Review the board reports and attachments on Item 11 including the Hawthorne Option Key Issues document. Listen closely to staff presentation and to a diverse set of stakeholders in public comment. If you have confidence in staff expertise and public input, we urge you to select the staff recommendation. If further time or review is needed to address the new motion or provide contingency, that should be considered instead of a sudden alignment shift at the 11th hour. Our members and advocates will do our best to respond to this move amidst the changes.

South Bay Forward