Car-Centric LA Suburb Looks to a Train-Oriented Future

A sprawling suburb 40 miles east of Los Angeles is about to become a major passenger rail hub once Brightline West, a high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas and Southern California, is complete.

As Sarah Stodola explains in Bloomberg CityLab, Rancho Cucamonga will be the western terminus of Brightline West, where travelers will be able to connect to other Southern California rail lines.

With the state’s more notorious north-south high-speed rail project languishing, Brightline West will likely become the state’s first operational high-speed rail line. “The city believes it can leverage its new high-speed rail station — and the millions of riders that will potentially pass through it — to build the kind of transit-oriented urban core that towns in postwar Southern California have historically struggled to cultivate.”

City leaders are preparing for a shift to more multimodal, pedestrian-friendly development by revamping its zoning codes to support active building frontages and walkable, mixed-use blocks. It now prohibits parking in the front of buildings and has eliminated parking requirements near transit stations. A new development already in progress near the existing Metrolink station will redevelop a defunct golf course into a mixed-use development with over 3,000 housing units, increasing density near the train hubs.