LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has approved a plan for a 13-mile, seven-station subway line to connect LA’s Westside to the San Fernando Valley. The underground route will parallel Sepulveda Pass, providing an alternative to the traffic-clogged 405 Freeway.
The project is expected to make it possible to travel between the Valley and Westside in 20 minutes, far less time than required for the rush-hour drive.
The LA Metro board of directors approved the plan, with an initial estimated cost of about $25 billion, at its meeting on Thursday, Jan. 22. Officials said that estimate will change as the project is finalized. A half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016, Measure M, will help fund the project, although a significant amount of funding is not yet secured.
“We have tried widening freeways and building over mountains, and we’ve spent billions doing it. The approach has failed,” Metro board member Katy Yaroslavsky, an LA City Council member, said, according to a KCBS-TV report. “This project represents a fundamentally different strategy.”
With the board’s vote on Thursday, the project will move ahead for further design and development of an environmental impact report.
The plan calls for tunnels at least 500 feet underground through the Santa Monica Mountains and neighborhoods like Bel-Air and Beverly Crest and would use automated heavy-rail equipment. In the south, it would connect to the still-under construction D Line subway in Westwood and terminate at the light rail E Line Expo/Sepulveda station; in the north, it would connect to Metrolink’s Van Nuys station and the future G line light rail station in the East San Fernando Valley.
The proposal was chosen over other alternatives including a monorail system over Sepulveda Pass.
More on the project is available at the LA Metro website.
— Updated Jan. 24 at 8:15 a.m. with additional detail on where tunnels would be 500 feet underground. To report news or errors, contact trainsnewswire@firecrown.com.
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