Inglewood Transit Connector Engineering and Design

The City of Inglewood has experienced exponential growth in the past decade, including the development of SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park, and the Intuit Dome. The iconic Kia Forum sits just north of SoFi Stadium, and the Hollywood Casino is located to the south. Inglewood recognized the need for underserved communities in the city to have convenient, multimodal connections between the greater Los Angeles County transit system and the city’s new employment, commercial, and activity centers. With substantial reductions in vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, this project will simultaneously enhance community safety and mobility.  

The Inglewood Transit Connector (ITC) project will be a 1.6-mile, three-station, fully elevated, automated people mover (APM) proposed by the City of Inglewood. When complete, the ITC will close a critical first-mile/last-mile gap, connecting passengers between the Metro Crenshaw/LAX Line and Downtown Inglewood’s major event and activity centers. The ITC project will also include a maintenance storage facility, two traction power substations for providing power to the system, and surface parking facilities at the Market Street/Florence Avenue station and the 150 Market Street lot.

GFT provided a wide range of architecture, infrastructure engineering, and design consultant services for the project, including the automated transit system (ATS) self-propelled technology requirements. The vehicles will be smaller than traditional heavy rail technology and can maneuver the tight curves required for site-specific conditions. The system will be fully automated to serve an estimated 4 million passengers annually, significantly reducing vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gases while enhancing community safety and mobility.

The ATS trains will operate in a pinched-loop mode with automatic train control on dual tracks along the alignment, wherein trains follow each other and switch back at the end-of-line stations to make the return journey on the adjacent track. Design and construction will be planned for the trains to be operated in multiple configurations.

Operating under a Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain model, the ITC project will ultimately accommodate an estimated 4 million passengers annually. GFT was the lead technical consultant in developing nine volumes of the following request for proposal (RFP) documents:

• Technical Provisions and General Requirements 
• Technical Provisions – Infrastructure 
• Technical Engineering Specifications 
• Technical Provisions – Automated Transit System 
• Technical Provisions – Operations and Maintenance 
• Construction General Provisions 
• Traffic Control Requirements and Restrictions 
• Seismic Design Provisions 
• Preliminary Geotechnical Data Reports  
• Permitting Requirements 
• Preliminary Design Plans 

GFT was the lead technical manager in charge of multiple workflows, such as developing the 30% plans and technical specifications, coordinating different concept development alternatives, preparing Federal Transit Administration (FTA) required cost estimates, and creating interactive grant program application exhibits. This allowed planning and specification development to occur in parallel paths and enables discrete work packages to be developed. Early community and stakeholder engagement and proactive design and mitigation issues identification was key to providing a succinct and technically feasible conceptual project. 

GFT was also the lead technical consultant responsible for the review of the project proposal submitted by the DBFOM developer team, including reviewing the following preliminary design elements: 

• Alternative technical concepts  
• Overall project site design plans 
• APM technology concepts 
• APM systems and communication alternatives 
• Utility relocation concepts 
• Traffic control and stage construction alternatives  
• Civil and structural layout plans   

 Engaging the community and stakeholders early, along with proactively identifying design and mitigation issues, has been crucial in developing a clear and technically feasible project concept. GFT also led discussions on equity regarding technology issues. These included farebox collections and station platform accessibility for elderly and disabled patrons.