Yesterday's vote approving a route for the 9 1/2 mile Westside Subway Extension was historic, but there's still a lot of work to do and a few questions to be answered. Following the news, Metro put together this map (above) detailing the route and portions where decisions still have to be made.
The approval put the project into its final environmental review period where the route is fully vetted before engineering, and then breaking ground, can happen. Decisions still to be made are where to exactly put the stations on the three most western stops: Westwood/V.A. Hospital (it's not actually in Westwood, though), Westwood/UCLA and Century City.
The latter is the most hotly contested by large coalition of Beverly Hills residents who do not want digging under their homes and, especially, their namesake high school (residents from neighboring Comstock Hills on the other hand, where even more properties will be tunneled under -- between 61 and 82 -- are not opposing the project so adamantly). Two options are up for grabs at this point: shooting the train under Santa Monica Blvd. for a station at Avenue of the Stars -- that's at the edge of Century City and a golf course -- or having a tunnel go under homes and the high school for a station at Avenue of the Stars and Constellation in the middle of the business district. That Constellation station, which is two-tenths of a mile from the Santa Monica Blvd. one, actually increases ridership and project efficiency when data is put through federal funding calculations.
Of lesser concern, but no doubt going to be much talked about, is where to put a station in the UCLA area. One option is keeping it at the busy intersection of Wilshire and Westwood and the other is under UCLA's Lot 36, where it will be a little more embedded within Westwood Village and closer to campus.
