The early work on construction of the new Purple Line subway station at the Wilshire and La Brea is moving along at a nice clip — see the recent pics posted above. The third phase of the decking work at the intersection begins this weekend. Here’s what you need to know:

•Work on the third phase is scheduled to take place for the next 10 weekends with the exception of the Labor Day holiday weekend, Sept. 2 through 5. The original schedule was for 16 weeks.

•The decking work involves replacing the street with concrete decks so that the subway station can be excavated below while car traffic continues to use Wilshire Boulevard. The station when built will be 1,000 feet long, 70 feet wide and 60 feet below street level.

•Wilshire will be reduced to one lane in each direction at 10 a.m. on every Friday during Phase 3 work. Full closure of Wilshire between La Brea and Highland begins each Friday at 8 p.m. and will continue until each Monday at 6 a.m.

•Work will be 24/7 with Metro taking measures to reduce noise as much as possible.

•Below are detours and temporary bus stop locations for the Metro 20 and 720 buses that use Wilshire Boulevard. The gist of it: the 20 and 720 will be using Olympic Boulevard between La Brea and Crenshaw.

Click above to see larger version.

•The detour map for motorists is below.

•And here’s the info for resident and business access:

•The Purple Line Extension is extending the Purple Line for nine miles to Westwood in three phases. The first phase will extend the line to Beverly Hills with stations located at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega. The second phase will add stations in downtown Beverly Hills and Century City and the third phase will add stations at Wilshire/Westwood and Wilshire/VA Hospital. The target completion date for the first phase to Wilshire/La Cienega is late 2023. The project is funded by the Measure R half-cent sales tax increase approved by L.A. County voters in 2008, as well as a federal grant.