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Residents Along Crenshaw-LAX Corrider Expected To Contend For Light Rail Jobs

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Crews began relocation and installing utilities along the Crenshaw-LAX transit corridor Monday ahead of actual construction work set to begin later this year, paving the way for hundreds of new jobs for local residents.

KNX 1070's Vytas Safronikas reports the project has been decades in the making.

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"55 years after the last Yellow Car ran down Crenshaw, we're putting our shovels on the ground and bringing light rail to South L.A.," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a bustling construction site at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Boulevards

The site represents the beginning of the advanced utility relocation work for the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor construction project aimed at various utilities that must be relocated along the Crenshaw light rail line alignment before major construction begins.

Officials hope the 8.5-miles light rail project at 10 locations along the corridor will successfully utilize a targeted hiring program to provide jobs to residents from Lamert Park, Hyde Park, Baldwin Hills, Inglewood, and Westchester.

"40 percent of those who work on this project will have to be residents who live within 5 miles of this project," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

With six stations, a maintenance facility, park-and-ride lots, traction power substations and the acquisition of rail vehicles and maintenance equipment, the light rail will run between the Expo Line on Exposition Boulevard and the Metro Green Line from Crenshaw to the airport.

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