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More money is going to be needed in order to fund a subway line through West Hollywood if such a line is to be built. Having a subway that zips under Santa Monica Blvd through our city is not currently feasible with the expected sources of funding for the Westside Subway project.
Metro just released a draft Environmental Impact Report (also called an EIR or EIS) that says a line through West Hollywood will bring the greatest transit benefits and competitiveness with use of automobiles for travel, but the incremental cost associated with those benefits is high.
Trips to the Westside of Los Angeles as illustrated in a graphic from Metro's Westside Subway EIR.
The report points out that over 300,000 people travel to and from the Westside every day. Because the Hollywood Hills provide a substantial natural barrier to the north of us, West Hollywood lies directly in the path of trips originating from the northeastern portion of Los Angeles.
Those trips, expected to increase by 24% by 2035, will continue to occur on our surface streets for the foreseeable future unless a subway segment through West Hollywood is included in the current project.
Public hearings have been announced for September 20 to 27 in the area where people can learn more about the different alternatives being studied and provide feedback. The meeting in West Hollywood will be at Plummer Park on September 22 at 6pm.
Alternative 5 for the Westside Subway is shown in this graphic from Metro's draft EIR document. Alternative 4 is similar, but would end in Westwood rather than Santa Monica.
The agency is studying five alternatives, which range in cost from $4.0 to $8.7 billion. Only two are financially feasible at this time. The two alternatives with a West Hollywood component are among those that are not, along with an option that extends Metro’s Purple Line all the way to Santa Monica.
Building one of the currently feasible alternatives would take the Purple Line to Westwood. That could eventually have a West Hollywood component added in to the system, though the option would be detached from the current project.
With faster speeds, the subway would save transit riders between 31,000 and 52,000 hours of equivalent travel time (transit system user benefits) on an average weekday in 2035.
There are a number of benefits to building Alternative 5, which includes both a Weho component and full line all the way to Santa Monica. 8 minutes would be shaved off the average peak travel time as compared to the currently feasible alternatives. It also gets a rating of “high” for competitiveness with speed of a trip by automobile, compared to “low/medium” and “medium” ratings for the Alternatives 1 and 2.
The numbers of low income and minority residents served is also substantially higher in Alternative 5, and it has the highest average operating speed rating of 33 miles per hour, compared to 13.5 for surface street transit options.
In fall 2010, the Metro Board of Directors is expected to consider the Draft EIS/EIR and select a “locally preferred alternative” (LPA). The LPA is the project that will proceed through final environmental review, preliminary engineering and also compete for federal “New Starts” matching funds.
The Draft EIS/EIR is available for review by visiting metro.net/westside. Copies are also available at a number of libraries, including in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the Fairfax Library on Gardner, and the Hollywood Library on Ivar.
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