Westside Subway Extension One Step Closer to Approval

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 Brentwood.

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 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 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.