by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Hope that Metro’s A Line will reach Claremont was renewed last week when $61 million in funding for design of the 2.3 mile extension from Pomona to the City of Trees was approved.

Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority’s Board of Directors awarded a six-year, $61 million contract to Virgina-based Parsons Transportation Group, Inc. for design and engineering services for the Pomona to Claremont segment. It will take about 18 months for the design to be finished and ready to bid, according to Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian, with estimates for completion in 2031 or 2032.

“The contract will include designing all elements of the 2.3-mile light rail extension from its current design level of approximately 30% to ‘Approved for Construction’ drawings, as well as supporting the project with any needed design services during construction,” read a Constriction Authority news release.

The total amount of the contract is $60,995,534. The funds will come from the Construction Authority’s $798 million budget for bringing the A Line from Pomona to Claremont. That money was awarded by LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in October 2024, after Senate Bill 125 dollars were allocated by the California State Transportation Agency in July 2024 for the A Line’s eastward extension to Montclair. That plan has since been revised to terminate in Claremont.

Earlier this month, the LA Metro board approved a request from the Construction Authority to use $95 million over the first two years of the project for design and pre-construction activities, according to Lisa Levy Buch, the Construction Authority’s chief communications and strategic development officer. The City of Claremont will not provide any direct funding to the project, Buch said.

Chris Burner, chief project and planning officer at the Construction Authority, told the Daily Bulletin’s Steve Scauzillo that work to get the project through Claremont would involve constructing overpasses at Garey and Towne avenues and Indian Hill Boulevard while also relocating a portion of Metrolink tracks and freight tracks to make way for the light rail system.

The news comes on the heels of the September 19, 2025 opening of four new A Line stations along the Azusa to Pomona route.

While the news is good news for light rail fans in Claremont, it still leaves the project a few miles short of its long stated goal of connecting Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Last year, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority Board of Directors pulled the plug on the Claremont to Montclair segment when it voted to stop negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the Construction Authority.

Prior to that, the Construction Authority rejected a $994 million bid from Kiewit for design and construction for the Pomona to Montclair segment as it was over budget. The Construction Authority then changed its approach, separating design from construction. The recent design deal was the first of the two contracts that will be awarded for the now Pomona to Claremont segment.

The construction contract is projected to be awarded in May, and “will include an initial phase of work during project design that includes providing constructability reviews, value engineering, third party coordination and cost estimating; with the possibility of building the project if the team successfully negotiates a construction services contract with an acceptable price once the project reaches 85%-90% design,” read a Construction Authority news release. “Assuming a successful bid for the construction work, it is expected that major construction would begin in late-2027/early-2028 and take approximately four years to complete.”