TBM completes second tunnel for Crenshaw/LAX Line

10 April 2017


The Los Angeles Country Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) announced April 6 the TBM mining the Crenshaw/LAX tunnels arrived at the Leimert Park Station, thereby completing the second of the project’s twin rail tunnels on the underground section of the 8.5-mile (13.6km) line.

Tunnelling began on April 27, 2016 with a 21.5ft- (6.5m-) diameter TBM, and mining completed for the first tunnel in the fall. Excavation of the second tunnel began on November 29, 2016.

Each tunnel is about one mile long (1.6km) — from the future Expo/Crenshaw Station at Exposition and Crenshaw boulevards to the Leimert Park Station at Crenshaw and 43rd. There is also a station in between at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.

Walsh-Shea Corridor Constructors is the contractor and comprised of Walsh, Shea, HNTB, Comstock and Arup.

Metro said mining progress was about 60ft (18m) per day and for the second tunnel. A crew of 75 workers manned the TBM over three shifts, five days per week.

The USD 2.058bn project is projected to open in the fall of 2019.

Photo by Jose Ubaldo/Metro.