The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors is set to vote Thursday on whether to give final approval for the $1.44 billion, 1.9-mile Regional Connector which would link various rail lines.

The board is scheduled to vote on the final environmental impact report for project, which was released for public comment last month.

The Regional Connector would link the Blue Line to Long Beach or the under-construction Expo Line to Santa Monica at the 7th Street/Metro Center Station. It would connect with the Gold Line to East Los Angeles or the San Gabriel Valley at Union Station on the other end, with three stops downtown in between.

It would allow riders to get from parts of the San Gabriel Valley to Santa Monica or Long Beach to Union Station without changing trains.

Officials say the project is needed because of a growing population that travel through downtown for work, and who have to make several transfers to get across the city by rail.

The preferred alternative does not include changes suggested by prominent downtown booster Eli Broad, who had asked that one subway stop be moved to the top of Bunker Hill. Broad also urged that the line zig-zag northeast from Second Street to First Street east of Bunker Hill, across a vacant lot next to the Los Angeles Times building.

The latest version of the plan would have trains remain in a subway below the intersection of First and Alameda streets, as suggested by members of the public at hearings last year.

The revised plan would have the tunnel fork to allow trains to pass to and from tracks in both directions on the Gold Line, towards either Pasadena or East Los Angeles.     The newest version also includes leaving room in the Flower Street tunnel for a potential fourth underground station at Fourth Street, a station that was dropped from the earlier plan to save initial construction money. An underground electrical station and a "pocket track" to hold empty trains would also be located below Flower at Fourth street

About $160 million in funding for the rail tunnel would come from a half- cent sales tax levy approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008, which will raise $40 billion for freeway and transit projects over 30 years.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been lobbying Congress to loan that money to local transit projects now, to allow them to be built as construction prices are lower.

President Barack Obama committed about $31 million for the project in his 2012-13 budget proposal.

If the board approves the environmental report, the Federal Transit Administration will have to give its approval to for Metro to begin relocating underground utility lines and acquiring the property it will need for construction.

Then Metro will need to begin looking for the remaining funding from the FTA's New Starts program, which helps agencies fund large transit projects.

Officials hope to complete final designs and begin construction of the Regional Connector by the end of 2013. They hope to open the line by 2019.

Metro held two meetings to gather public input since it released the Environmental Impact Report last month. The full report can be downloaded at www.metro.net/projects/connector/connector-final-eiseir/.

-City News Service