MTA Directors approve Phase One of the Westside Subway Extension

Councilman Labonge testifies before a standing-room only crowd in the Board Room at MTA headquarters on April 26, 2012

Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge on Thursday testified before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors as it voted to approve plans for the first phase of a $5.6-billion dollar extension of the Purple Line Subway toward the westside of Los Angeles. It was Councilman LaBonge – as an MTA Board Member – who introduced the original motion in 2004 to overtun the federal ban on drilling under Wilshire Boulevard. MTA Directors approved phase-one of the purple line but put-off action on the next two segments of the subway extension to deal with objections raised by the City of Beverly Hills and its School District over plans to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School. The Board approved a roughly 3.9-mile section of the so-called subway to the sea, from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to a new station at La Cienega and Wilshire Boulevards. Beverly Hills city and school district officials asked for a formal hearing on plans to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School, so MTA Directors decided to postpone action on the extension of the subway to Century City and Westwood until that hearing can be held. The Board heard a report on the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Westside Subway Extension. During his testimony, Councilman LaBonge thanked Mayor Villaraigosa and the MTA Board for moving ahead with this much-needed subway extension. “This is a significant milestone in the effort to bring rapid-transit to a city that greatly needs it.” The approval of the first phase of the Purple Line marks a milestone in the long effort to bring a subway to the sea. After a huge methane explosion at a Ross Store on 3rd Street in 1985, federal funding and political will dried-up to dig a subway tunnel to the westside of Los Angeles. But in 2004, Councilman LaBonge, as a member of the MTA Board, introduced a motion to lift the federal ban on Wilshire Subway tunneling and resume planning the so-called "Subway to the Sea". The Daily News -- in an editorial -- scoffed that the Councilman's idea was a step backward, calling the plan a "subway to nowhere". But the MTA Board passed the motion in 2005 and Councilman LaBonge got his colleagues on the City Council as well as the Mayor to support the plan. In 2007, President George Bush lifted the federal ban on tunneling under Wilshire and, a year later, Measure R -- which funds the subway and other transportation projects -- passed by a two-thirds majority of voters. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Don't stop, it'll soon be here,” said Councilman LaBonge, quoting a Fleetwood Mac song and already setting his sights on a subway down Vermont Avenue. “Today it’s the Subway to the Sea. Tomorrow it’ll be the Subway to USC!”