If you've been detouring off Van Nuys Boulevard at Sherman Way for the better part of this year, you already know something is happening in that median strip. What you may not know is how long it's going to keep happening.
Back when Metro first sketched out the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail, the line was tracked to open in 2027, in time to carry Olympic crowds during the 2028 Games. That target is gone. Skanska, the contractor now building the line in a joint venture with Stacy Witbeck, confirmed in its own announcement of the project's construction contract that heavy work began in July 2026, with completion expected in December 2031. The Games will come and go without a single train running down this boulevard. Anyone budgeting their patience around "two more years of this" is budgeting against the wrong number.
The Timeline That Quietly Slipped
The shift didn't happen all at once. Utility relocation, the unglamorous work of moving power ducts and drainage lines out of the path of future track, has been underway on Van Nuys Boulevard since 2022, when Metro broke ground on advance utility work. City planners once described heavy civil construction, meaning station builds and actual track installation, as something that would begin in "late spring 2026." That's roughly what happened. What changed is the finish line behind it.
Here's the comparison that matters if you live or run a business along this corridor:
| What was on the table | Where it stands now | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening target | 2027, positioned to serve the 2028 Olympics | December 2031, per Skanska's own build schedule |
| Construction start | "Late spring 2026" for heavy civil work | Confirmed underway as of July 2026 |
| Project cost | Early estimates in the billions | $3.573 billion total, with an $893 million federal grant and a $2.43 billion build contract to the Skanska/Stacy Witbeck joint venture |
| Line length | 6.7 miles, 11 stations | Unchanged |
That $2.43 billion figure is the contract Metro awarded specifically for construction. The full project, funded through Measure M, Measure R, state dollars, and that federal grant, runs to $3.573 billion once design, environmental work, and the maintenance facility are counted in.
What's Actually Torn Up Right Now
Most of what you saw torn up on Van Nuys Boulevard through the first half of this year was utility relocation, not the light rail guideway itself, and it ran in rolling directional closures rather than one long shutdown. Starting in late January 2026, Metro closed the northbound lanes between Arminta Street and Sherman Way for about two weeks, then flipped to closing the southbound lanes through early March, then back to northbound through late June. Each closure routed traffic off the boulevard entirely rather than just squeezing it into fewer lanes.
That utility phase wrapped by late June. What's underway now is the heavier build: Skanska's own construction update marks July 2026 as the start of guideway, station, and track work along the same corridor, the phase that runs all the way to the December 2031 finish. Expect the specific closure notices to keep rotating block by block as that work moves north, even if the play-by-play for this stage hasn't been published in the same detail as the utility phase yet.
The detours from the utility phase are worth memorizing anyway, since Metro has reused this same pattern before and is likely to again as construction moves through new segments:
- Northbound traffic detours via Sherman Way to Woodman Avenue to Roscoe Boulevard, then back to Van Nuys Boulevard.
- Southbound traffic detours via Sherman Way to Sepulveda Boulevard to Roscoe Boulevard, then back to Van Nuys Boulevard.
- Side streets including Wyandotte, Valerio, Covello, Saticoy, and Keswick can lose their direct outlet onto Van Nuys Boulevard during an active closure.
- Most of this work happens overnight on weeknights, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., with full weekend closures running around the clock.
Bus riders on Metro Lines 169, 233, and 761, along with the LADOT Dash service, have seen temporary stop relocations tied to the same closures. The Van Nuys Metrolink and Amtrak station has stayed open and accessible through all of it, which matters if your commute connects there.
The Second Closure Nobody's Talking About
Here's the part that gets lost in most coverage of this project: the light rail construction isn't the only thing that has disrupted transit at the southern end of the boulevard. The Metro G Line's Van Nuys Station, the same station where the new light rail line will eventually terminate, went into its own three-year closure starting February 21, 2025, tied to a separate $668 million project meant to speed up travel times on the G Line busway. On that timeline, the busway closure is due to lift around early 2028, years before the light rail itself is finished. Two projects, anchored at the same intersection, are running on overlapping but distinct clocks. If you connect through Van Nuys Station on your way to work, you have already lived through one closure timeline, and a longer one is still ahead of you.
If Your Business Sits on the Boulevard
Metro built financial cushions into this project specifically because it knows what years of median-strip construction do to a retail corridor. The Business Interruption Fund offers grants of up to $60,000 per impact year to small, independently owned businesses that can show documented revenue loss tied to construction. For the smallest operators, including sidewalk and street vendors who may not have formal financial records, there's a separate Presumptive Eligibility Award of up to $1,500 per impact year with lighter documentation requirements. Metro's Business Solution Center also runs coaching and workshops aimed at helping storefronts stay open through the build-out. None of this erases the disruption, but it's worth knowing these programs exist if you own or lease space anywhere along this stretch.
What You Actually Get in 2031
It helps to remember what's being built underneath all of this. The line will run 6.7 miles down the median of Van Nuys Boulevard with 11 center-platform stations, including stops at Victory, Sherman Way, the Van Nuys Metrolink station, Arleta, and San Fernando Road. Trains are projected to run every 7 to 10 minutes during peak hours. Once complete, it will connect directly to the Metrolink Ventura County Line, Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner, the Metro G Line, and eventually the planned Sepulveda Transit Corridor toward the Westside.
That connectivity is the whole point, and it's also the historical detail that gets buried in the construction-notice coverage: this will be the first local-stop rail service on Van Nuys Boulevard in more than seventy years. The Pacific Electric Railway ran streetcars along a version of this same corridor from 1911 until 1952, before the tracks were pulled up in favor of buses. What's under construction now isn't a novelty. It's a return.
The Practical Takeaway
If you live along Van Nuys Boulevard, the honest planning horizon isn't "hang in there until the Olympics." It's five more years of a corridor in some phase of active construction, with closure patterns that rotate by segment and by season. Metro posts quarterly community meeting updates and runs a Community Leadership Council specifically so residents can track which block is next. If you drive this stretch daily, it's worth checking those updates before you assume last year's detour still applies.
Brandolino Group works this corridor as part of the greater San Fernando Valley, and long construction cycles like this one tend to reshape a street's daily rhythm well before they reshape its property values. If you want a grounded, local read on what a multi-year infrastructure build actually means for a specific block in Van Nuys, or anywhere else in the Valley, Brandolino Group is a call away.
