Westside Subway Extension One Step Closer to Approval
The project is chosen to move into the U.S. Department of Transportation's final approval phase.
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A proposed $641 million federal loan that would accelerate construction of the Westside Subway Extension, which will travel through Beverly Hills, moved a step closer to approval Wednesday.
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer announced that the project was one of only eight selected nationwide to move into the U.S. Department of Transportation's final approval phase.
The project calls for an expansion of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Purple Line from Western Avenue to the Veterans Administration Medical Center.
The subway extension would stretch from the Metro Wilshire Boulevard/Western Avenue station to the Veterans Administration hospital campus at Wilshire and the San Diego (405) Freeway.
The $5.2 billion project is scheduled for completion in 2022, a date that hinges on whether the federal government will lend the MTA money to build it faster, with the loan to be repaid by Measure R tax dollars already approved by county voters in November 2008.
“Los Angeles is the largest city in our country without a comprehensive subway system,'' Feinstein said. “That needs to change. I urged the Department of Transportation to make this loan to [Metro] in order to begin construction on the Westside extension and to establish a world-class transit system in a city that desperately needs one.''
The subway has run into opposition in Beverly Hills. Officials and residents are overwhelmingly against the proposition to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School and residential homes to build a route that follows Lasky Drive to Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars to reach Century City. They prefer that the route follow Santa Monica Boulevard.
However, many outside Beverly Hills prefer a subway that would go under BHHS and the surrounding neighborhood, saying that route would better serve the office buildings and condos in Century City.
Still, the project is moving forward.
“I am so pleased that the Westside Subway Extension Project is advancing and attracting national attention as a model of how we finance and build transit projects nationwide,” Boxer said.
This report was compiled with information from City News Service.
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Paul
9:39 pm on Saturday, July 9, 2011
Why build an under ground subway in a city that has earthquakes? An above ground system like Long Beach's blue line makes more sense and much cheaper. I never use the subway downtown. How would you like to be in a subway in LA during a major earthquake?
Josh Marks
10:08 pm on Saturday, July 9, 2011
Not a problem at all Paul. Subways are perfectly safe in earthquakes. The L.A. metro red line is a good example. During the 1994 Northridge quake it did not suffer any damage at all. There are subways all over the world where there are earthquakes and with new advanced tunneling technology they are perfectly safe.
Paul
6:51 am on Sunday, July 10, 2011
Not to down play the severity of the Northridge earthquake, it was not nearly as bad as it could have been or as predicted an even larger earth shaker is bound to happen eventually. Also, when was the downtown subway fully functional? I think I do recall riding it in 93? I remember when they were building the subway downtown and it took along time with many problems.
LG
11:03 pm on Sunday, July 10, 2011
Who builds a subway under a high school full of teenagers and teachers? It is the city's emergency meeting place and crisis center for it's residents.
What is it about the name "Beverly Hills" that fuels
such animosity? In any other city, drilling under an oil-field and school full of students would never be considered. Yet, because of the name of our city, Beverly Hills residents are having to fight tooth and nail and spend exorbitant sums on legal fees to have a chance at even having our case heard.
Logical? No. Fair? Absolutely not. Discrimination towards the city because of the name "Beverly Hills" ? Absolutely.
Transitboy
10:33 am on Monday, July 11, 2011
Subways throughout the world go under things such as schools. People in places like New York, London, Paris, Moscow and others have no problems with them, because they are 100 feet underground and not noticeable at all. Only Beverly Hills has a problem, and probably only those who do not understand subway construction have a problem with it.
Note that the 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area was huge, and resulted in no damage to the BART subway system, which enabled life to continue in the are while the Bay Bridge, which was heavily damaged in the earthquake and taken out of service, was repaired.