The Brief

The Los Angeles Metro Board unanimously voted Thursday to proceed with developing a 14-mile-long subway under the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s one of the first significant steps in what city and county leaders are describing as the region's most consequential transit project and perhaps one of the most important in the country.

Metro staff said in a report to its board that it has secured funding through county tax measures for about 14% of the $24.2 billion it’s preliminarily estimated to cost to build the route, which will involve extensive tunneling. They added the cost estimate would be updated as further refinements are made, but having this amount of funding secured is “not uncommon” for projects early on in development.

Still, leaders underscored that while the need for a rail link between the Valley and Westside couldn’t be overstated, staff for the countywide transportation agency should remain mindful of financial constraints and push for cost reductions through the next several years before shovels hit the ground.

“Ambition matters, dreaming big matters, but honesty matters too,” L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who also is a member of the Metro Board, said during Thursday’s meeting. “We can't afford to approve transformative projects without being clear about the path to funding and delivery.”

The price tag certainly is “eye-popping” and Metro’s “largest project to date,” as Ray Sosa, the chief planning officer for the agency, recently wrote in an op-ed about the project.

With today’s vote progressing the project, the Metro Board enthusiastically endorsed the investment, for now, in theory.

The project and selected route 

The Sepulveda Transit Corridor, as the project is known, was conceived to relieve Angelenos of the sometimes 90-minute drive between the Valley and Westside via the 405 Freeway, provide a crucial artery to connect with other regional rail and bus routes and link residential areas to job centers.

In June 2025, Metro released its draft environmental review of five different subway and monorail options. Of the more than 8,000 public comments Metro received, fewer than 70 expressed opposition to the project as a whole, according to agency staff.

Metro staff in January published its recommendation to move forward with further study of a modified version of one of the subway options.

That’s what the transportation agency’s board approved Thursday.

The route is projected to see as many as 124,000 rides per day and reduce the total amount people would otherwise travel by car by nearly 800,000 miles a day.

An end-to-end trip on the proposed route between Valley and the Westside is slated to take 20 minutes, with trains arriving every 2.5 minutes at peak times.

The 405 Freeway during rush hour March 10, 2022, in Los Angeles.

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Patrick T. Fallon

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Getty Images

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Station locations for the proposed train would connect to the Metro D, E and East San Fernando Valley rail lines, the Metrolink stop in Van Nuys and also the G bus rapid-transit line. Crucially, the route also will stop at UCLA, which over the years had become a non-negotiable necessity among students and other advocates of the train.

“Higher education deserves to be easily accessible for everyone,” Mariela Diaz, a UCLA commuter student who described herself as low income, said at the meeting Thursday. “Future UCLA students deserve to have their first on-campus station.”

As it’s currently planned, there wouldn’t be a stop providing direct access to the Getty Center, for which the museum had been publicly campaigning.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who has a seat on the Metro Board, asked Thursday that agency staff report back on “transportation alternatives to address fast and last-minute connections to the Getty Center.”

The proposed route would run from Van Nuys to the Westside.

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L.A. Metro

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Report details economic benefits 

A report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation details how construction would generate as much as $40 billion in economic output and spur more than $16 billion in labor income countywide.

You can read the full report, commissioned by L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office, here. 

Leaders urge continued engagement and not to compromise on vision 

Today’s vote directed Metro staff to focus on the proposed route for forthcoming technical and environmental analyses and clearances, as well as to further refine design and cost estimates.

There also will be continued community engagement.

Yaroslavsky amended the item the board approved Thursday to include language asking Metro staff to, among other tasks, report back on a community engagement plan focused on the communities that might be impacted by tunneling or construction and to maintain a publicly accessible outreach calendar.

Metro’s final environmental documents, which will be the culmination of the continued engagement and study, will be subject to future approval from the board.

Los Angeles City Councilmember and Metro Board member Katy Yaroslavsky advocated for continued community engagement as the countywide transportation agency pursues the Sepulveda Transit Corridor project.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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When construction starts, the focus will first be on the middle segment of the train running from the G-line stop in Van Nuys to the future D-line stop in Westwood.

The additional segments on the north and south sides of the route would be built afterward.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who also is on the Metro Board, urged that the full route be built as envisioned.

“Phasing is a given, but the true value of this line will not be realized until it is fully built out,” Padilla said.

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory may run the second-longest study of  individually identifiable mammals in the world, but they’re not afraid of trying something new.

The lab is launching a bracket-style competition, Fat Marmot Week, for people all over the world to vote for their favorite chunky ground squirrel.

The UCLA researchers who work there have faced a loss of federal funding in recent years, so they’re now pursuing creative fundraising efforts, including a (G-rated) OnlyFans account for marmot content called OnlyMarms and a meme coin created by supporters of the project.

Where the idea came from

Dan Blumstein, a UCLA ecology and evolutionary biology professor who came up with OnlyMarms, said he’s wanted to do a Fat Marmot Week ever since the success of Fat Bear Week, in which the public votes on grizzly bears bulking up for the winter in Alaska. But it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, along with another volunteer who helps with logistics, to see it to fruition.

“ Science isn't just writing the papers, it's also the communication side of things,” said Adler, who’s also the lab’s field team leader.

Like bears, marmots prepare for the winter by fattening up, with some more than doubling in weight from about 5.5 pounds to as much as 13. But unlike bears, marmots are true hibernators. For months, their body temperature drops very low, and they breathe and have a heartbeat about once a minute. (Blumstein described a hibernating marmot as “sort of a fuzzy stone.”)

These two specimens are called Dawn and Dan's Hat.

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Courtesy Dan Blumstein/UCLA

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 Adler, who's on her third year of marmot field observations, said the individual marmots are consistent enough that she can "see what they're doing a little bit and then know exactly who it is."

“I think it’s fun to think of this from an outside perspective – why do we like marmots and how can we share that with other people?” Renkey said.

About the marmots

The marmots are all given names to help tell them apart based on markings the researchers dye on their fur.

Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.

“Our parties are quite boring to other people because all we do is talk about the marmots,” Blumstein said. “It's a soap opera.”

Funding troubles

Faced with federal funding cuts, Blumstein realized he had to get creative, starting with the OnlyMarms account.

But he said he wasn’t expecting the “extraordinary” response – the $OnlyMarms meme coin has made more than $100,000 in transaction fees, though it’s still short of the $225,000 to $300,000 they need to fundraise to bring in more graduate student research.

Blumstein said while all funding is welcome, including the OnlyMarms subscriptions, it’s much easier for them to accept direct donations for tax purposes. The money will go to support researchers like Renkey and Adler’s contributions to the nearly 65 years of marmot research at the lab.

The tournament

Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males. There’ll also be a “true” winner announced at the end based on the lab’s measurements on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.

The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26, and the final showdown on Friday, Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.

“Everyone should vote. It's very exciting,” Renkey said. “They're huge this summer.”

The younger bald eagle that Shadow has been seen hanging out with around Big Bear’s famous nest lately has a new name.

The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.

The organization generally doesn’t name visiting eagles, but Kaydee is sticking around so far and could become a new online star after Shadow’s long-time mate Jackie died last week.

So, who is this new eagle in the nest?

One expert told LAist that Kaydee is more than 4 years old and was probably wandering much further than Big Bear before it was spotted on camera.

“This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” said Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District.

“In this instance, we're getting 24/7 views and people are so tuned into it that they're keeping really good track of where KD1 is, and it's really awesome.”

Meet Kaydee

Kaydee was first recorded on the livestream cameras in the Big Bear habitat on Aug. 6 — a few days before Jackie died — according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.

The nonprofit said the eagle started to perch by Shadow in several trees, which it has continued to do in the weeks since. The group recently referred to Kaydee as Shadow’s “shadow.”

Kaydee is from the Prado Basin area, where its parents Ricky and Lucy nest nearby. Carpenter said Ricky and Lucy have raised around a dozen eaglets since 2021, when they first started setting up shop in the area.

The eagle wears two bracelet-like bands on its legs, including a lavender-colored one, which can be used to track Kaydee in different areas.

“If someone sees [the color band] with a scope or binoculars or a zoom camera, it can be reported and put into a research database, which adds to the opportunity to progress conservation for raptors and eagles,” Carpenter said.

You can learn more about reporting a bird with a federal band or color marker here.

Will Kaydee stick with Shadow?

Kaydee is what's known as a subadult eagle, a stage in which Carpenter said raptors are still trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want to be.

“Big Bear’s a nice habitat, obviously they've been visiting this nest, you know, there's some interest there whatever it may be,” she said. “So it's possible that they stick around and find a mate, whether that be Shadow or another adult eagle.”

But it’s also possible Kaydee moves onto another habitat after the off-season. Whatever happens, Carpenter said us humans get to go along for the ride through the livestream, which she described as a privilege.

“We get this chance to witness something that we would not normally get to witness, because we know exactly who this bird is and we happen to have cameras in the area,” she said. “It might be everything and it might be nothing, and either way, I think that's really exciting that we get to have a little peek into this world.”

The Esquivel family opened their first taqueria at Playas de Tijuana 15 years ago, with a focus on individually crafted tacos, each with its own pairing of salsa.

Since then, Taqueria Tijuanero — formerly Tijuanazo — has become an increasingly popular SoCal taco chain.

Owner Aria Esquivel sat down with AirTalk Friday host Austin Cross to talk about how it all started from a humble Tijuana brick-and-mortar and how they stay true to their distinct North Mexican menu.

The art of the taco

Esquivel’s father and mastermind behind Taqueria Tijuanero, Antonio Esquivel, began working in kitchens when he was 16 years old, working his way up from dishwasher to cook at French restaurants in Beverly Hills.

“What he really loved about the taco and the art of the taco in Tijuana is how these ingredients mesh so well together,” Esquivel said.

That’s when the family opened up their own restaurant in Playas de Tijuana in 2011.

Mexico's taco diversity

Because of Mexico’s diverse landscape of crops, history and even weather patterns, taco styles can actually vary quite a bit depending on where you are in the country.

“ The tacos in Mexico City are different," Esquivel said. "The tacos in Sonora are different. The Tijuana tacos are different."

Fresh al pastor

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(Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero

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Al pastor taco

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Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero

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Bill Esparza, the James Beard Award-winning food writer who's spent the last two decades chronicling L.A.'s taco scene, helped curate Taqueando After Dark, a new food festival that will feature eight L.A. taco vendors, including Taqueria Tijuanero.

“When I see theirs, I see what I see in Mexico,” Esparza said of Taqueria Tijuanero’s tacos, adding, “It’s a taco that really has a lot of intentionality behind it.”

How to experience Taqueando After Dark festival

Taqueando After Dark takes over Level 8 for two nights, Aug. 27 and 28. (Courtesy of Level 8)

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Courtesy Taqueando After Dark

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Read more: LA taqueros meet Baja’s best for two-night DTLA taco festival

New location coming:

• The family is in the process of opening its third SoCal location in Echo Park.

How to visit:

• Address: 355 S Atlantic Blvd., East Los Angeles
• Hours: Closed on Mondays | Tuesday-Sunday, open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Costs: Tacos are $3.95 each