Below is the hearing notice for the public hearing before the Metro Board of Directors requested by the Beverly Hills City Council on the Westside Subway Extension’s route in Beverly Hills and Century City. The hearing will be 1:30 p.m., Thursday, May 17, at Metro headquarters adjacent to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and is open to the public. Those who can’t be there can also listen to the meeting on the phone by calling 213-922-6045.
Quick background: The Metro Board last week certified the Final Environmental Impact Statement/Report for the Westside Subway Extension, thereby approving the overall study of the project. The Board also selected the route for the project’s first phase from Western Avenue to La Cienega Boulevard but deferred picking a route for the project’s second phase to Century City and the third phase to the Westwood/VA Hospital.
In order to avoid active earthquake fault zones along Santa Monica Boulevard, Metro’s planning staff have recommended a route that would travel 50 to 70 feet below part of the Beverly Hills High School campus to reach a station at Century City station at Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars, which is outside of the fault zones and also more centrally located in Century City. The city of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Unified School District oppose a route that would tunnel under the campus.
The Board of Directors is not expected to take any action at the hearing. The Board could decide about this matter, and the rest of the Subway, as soon as their next regularly scheduled meeting which is on May 24th.
Categories: Projects
Having lived in NYC for 11 years before moving to LA the one thing I miss most is decent public transportation. I work in Century City and commute from South Pasadena. Commuting via public transportation is currently not an option. The purple line would change everything for many people.
I don’t understand the rational for not being an advocate for any subway extension in LA…anywhere. The traffic is miserable and the pollution still a very real health issue. This is the only major metropolis in the country to not have an extensive subway system.
Unfortunately, it is not a very big surprise that some in the Beverly Hills community lack the foresight to see what an asset this would be. The gated mansions and expensive cars speak for themselves. The Upper East Side of New York is reachable by 3 subways lines…Beverly Hills does not need to shelter itself from accessibility and progress.
If corporations can take land away from landowners by right of eminent domain in this country to build “infrastructure”, the city of LA should be able to build a subway line 70 feet safely below a neighborhood for the common good of all.
Wake up Beverly Hills!
[…] Quick background: The Metro Board last week certified the Final Environmental Impact Statement/Report for the Westside Subway Extension, thereby approving the overall study of the project. The Board also selected the route for the project’s first phase from Western Avenue to La Cienega Boulevard but deferred picking a route for the project’s second phase to Century City and the third phase to the Westwood/VA Hospital….” Read the rest of this story from Metro’s The Source […]
Not that I don’t think the BHUSD is wrong wrong wrong, but I should, as they will, point out that Woo Lae Oak School was built after the Wilshire/Vermont Subway was built, IIRC.
Still, it sits atop the station box.
East 1st Elementary in East L.A. has had the Roybal Gold Line tunneled under its northern edge.
Thank you Lisa for an excellent post. I couldn’t agree with you more. The subway station at Constellation will benefit everyone in the community – including the residents of Beverly Hills.
The continued debate regarding the Beverly Hills School has cost unnecessary delays to this long overdue and much needed Purple Line project. The emotionally charged allegations that this subway project will somehow ruin the Beverly Hills, the Beverly Hills schools and the children attending are unfounded. The County voted on this project – and voted yes. Beverly Hills does not stand in a special place to be able to set aside something that was decided through the democratic process and for the greater good of the people of Los Angeles County.
The proposed project is under the newer section of the school, avoids the fault line, and will be built 70 feet below the ground with state of the art engineering. Where were these nay-saying people when the Vermont/Wilshire station was built under the Woo Lae Oak School? Or that the purple/red line ran adjacent to the Pilgrim School at 6th and Commonwealth? There is no evidence that building subways in Los Angeles (or any other city – e.g. NYC) has harmed school children. Our Los Angeles subways run under courthouses (Stanley Mosk, Clara Shortridge Foltz and Central Civil West) and other historical landmarks along Wilshire and in downtown Los Angeles. Our subways tunnel through the heart of Hollywood and the Cahuenga pass. No construction project is perfect, and the Metro Board has refined its methods accordingly. The beneficiaries of the Purple line will have the benefit of what has been learned in the past 15 years.
I sincerely hope that the Metro Board moves forward with the Purple line project as quickly as possible. We live in the 21st Century – and this project is long overdue for the westside of Los Angeles County.
[…] Metro Schedules the Requested Public Hearing for Beverly Hills on Subway (The Source) […]
Can metro find a way to stream the phone and/or Metro headquarters video feed online?