Link: Comments Sought On Westside Subway Station
Comments Sought on Westside Subway Station
Metro evaluating several routes for construction.
Updated: Sunday, 31 Jan 2010, 4:57 PM PST
Published : Sunday, 31 Jan 2010, 4:57 PM PST
Posted by: Scott Coppersmith / myFOXla.com
People who work or live around Century City are being asked for their opinions on where the Westside subway station should be located, and an open house will be held at an office building Tuesday to gather comments.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation is evaluating several routes for the proposed $4.2 billion subway, and would like to place subway stop somewhere in Century City. The question is: where?
"We know that Century City is a huge regional employment center," said Metro project director David Mieger. As many as 40,000 commuters work in the office buildings, mall and Fox movie studios in Century City.
Most commuters arrive and depart Century City by car through jammed sections of Beverly Hills or West Los Angeles. Los Angeles traffic planners have erected stop signs and banned turns along a major commuter shortcut through Cheviot Hills in order to spare that leafy neighborhood from heavy traffic.
Metro is planning to extend the Purple Line underground tracks down Wilshire Boulevard across the Fairfax District to downtown Beverly Hills, then dip southwest to serve Century City. The Tuesday hearing is to determine where to place the Century City stop.
A developer who wants to demolish the historic Century Plaza Hotel, in the middle of Century City, wants to bring the subway there. But that would mean tunneling beneath residential neighborhoods in Beverly Hills, and the Century Plaza project is mired in controversy.
The alternative would be to keep the subway beneath Santa Monica Boulevard, but that would mean the station would be at the northern end of Century City, instead of in its center.
Tunneling under some houses and apartments is likely necessary west of either subway station alternative, because planners want the subway to swing away from Santa Monica Boulevard to serve a station either on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood or at UCLA, according to Metro planning documents.
Metro has narrowed down 15 Westside subway alignments to two major concepts. Both would see the subway extended west from the Vermont/Wilshire Station to at least Westwood, or maybe to the VA Hospital just west of the San Diego (405) Freeway.
Options are still being considered to extend that leg west under Wilshire to downtown Santa Monica. A second option would add a leg of the subway north and east from Beverly Hills to serve the Beverly Center area and West Hollywood, ending at the Red Line station at Hollywood and Highland boulevards.
Tuesday's open house will start at 11:30 a.m. and include two short presentations by subway planners. It will be held in the concourse level conference center of the highrise at 2029 Century Park East.
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