The Metro Orange Line is a $154 million design-build 13-mile landscaped bus rapid transitway which Tatsumi and Partners had the pleasure of being awarded the lead landscape architectural consultants for the project team. When completed, the Metro Orange Line will run 13 busway stations spaced approximately one mile apart from the North Hollywood Metro Red Line Station to the Warner Center in the West Valley. As part of the project, bike and pedestrian paths have been designed along the route to give residents more transportation options as well as a jogging/bicycling recreation area when using the transitway. Project planners also factored in a transitway beautification plan which includes a landscaped area of 80 acres on the exclusive transitway consisting of a planting of 7,000 trees and 900,000 drought-tolerant shrubs. Park-and-Ride lots will also be built at five stations, providing 3,300 new parking spaces. The Metro Orange Line has gone into operation in the Fall of 2005.