Westside Subway

Last week, the Century City Chamber of Commerce along with a couple of homeowner groups and L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz held a press conference making their case for a Westside Subway stop at Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Avenue.  The week previously, the CCoC launched a website, responding to a website launched by consultants for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce which promoted a subway stop at Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Avenue.  Today, a rebuttal to the press CCoC/Koretz press conference was published in the Huffington Post.

Yesterday, the Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) filed a petition asking the State Superior Court to issue a Writ of Mandate forcing Metro to release thousands of pages of documents relating to the Westside Subway expansion and the station locations being studied in Century City.  A copy of the petition is available on Streetsblog, here.

Opponents of a Metro proposal to build a Subway Station at the intersection of Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Avenue in Century City are taking their argument to the Internet.  A recently opened website and Facebook Page are pushing the idea that an alternative subway stop on Santa Monica Boulevard.  Honestly, the information on the website and Facebook Page, taken on their own without hearing the other side of the debate, make a compelling case that the it makes sense to scrap the "Constellation Avenue Station" and stick with an earlier proposal for the Santa Monica Station.

Yesterday, Metro announced that in addition to the two stations already being studied for a Westside Subway stop in Century City near Beverly Hills.  The reaction from readers, both at Curbed and The Source was pretty overwhelmingly negative with accusations that Metro was selling out and a heaping of venom for the Beverly Hills NUMBY's.  Of course, it's not the Metro staff who's in charge of selling out, that's the realm of the Board of Directors.  They won't have their chance for another couple of months.

Here's a quick rundown of the major votes by today's Metro Board. Each of these five motions were discussed at Streetsblog over the last couple of weeks, and links to those stories can be found at the end of each summary.  Streetsblog will have links to all news reports on today's meeting tomorrow.

You have to hand it to the Not Under My Back Yard (NUMBY) contingent in Beverly Hills.  They really know how to make a lot of noise without a lot of facts.

Earlier this week, Metro staff released its recommendations for the Locally Preferred Alternatives for the Westside Subway.  While a proposed spur of the Purple Line through Wests Hollywood and the idea of extending the subway "To the Sea" were shelved for now; the final route for the last leg of the extension, i.e. whether it will have a stop at Constellation Avenue or Santa Monica Boulevard in Santa Monica, was left unresolved for further study.

On the agenda for next week's Metro Board Planning and Programming Committee are two agenda items that will surely raise eyebrows and cause some debate.  Metro staff is recommending that the Board approve Locally Preferred Alternatives (LPAs) for the Westside Subway and Regional Connector Projects.  It comes as no surprise to Metro watchers which alternatives were selected, but as Dan Wentzel notes at "Ride the Pink Line" it is somewhat surprising that the staff's preferred alternatives were released BEFORE public comment on the projects is completed.