Construction rolling along on Orange Line extension

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority finished acquiring properties — including tire shops, metal supply stores and used-car dealerships — along the east side of Canoga Avenue in May and those buildings are now being demolished to make room for the four-mile-long busway.

"It's coming any day now," said Jim Gougeon, owner of Valley Pacific Frame and Suspension, an auto shop near Canoga Avenue and Sherman Way, where buildings have been razed to make way for a 207-space park-and-ride lot.

Metro is about halfway done with demolishing the buildings and clearing the rights-of-way, and completion is expected within three weeks, said Hitesh Patel, Orange Line project manager. Excavation and construction of the busway will start in Chatsworth and progress south beginning early next year, with completion set for 2012.

(...) The Orange Line extension will create a landscaped busway and parallel bike path from the terminus near Victory Boulevard and Canoga Avenue, north to the Chatsworth Metrolink Station. Stations will be located at Sherman Way, Roscoe Boulevard and Nordhoff Street.

It will connect with the busway that opened in October 2005, a 14-mile route between Warner Center and the Red Line subway station in North Hollywood.

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