Subway 90210 needs more review

L.A. County Supervisor and Metro director Zev Yaroslavsky is asking for more work on a staff-recommended Westside Subway route that leaves open the possibility of tunneling under Beverly Hills High School.

Yaroslavsky, addressing strong community opposition to going under the high school and nearby homes, won support Wednesday from a Metro committee for a broad study of the concerns raised by the residents.

“It’s not a done deal,” Yaroslavsky said of the proposed tunnel—a statement that brought a measure of relief to Lisa Korbatov, vice president of the Beverly Hills Board of Education. “We’re thankful he understands our issues,” she said after Metro’s planning and programming committee approved the motion.

Korbatov, testifying on behalf of a contingent of riled Beverly Hills officials and residents, said the Metro staff report that includes the possibility of tunneling under the high school is full of “gaping holes and glaring omissions.”

The argument that seemed to get the most traction, however, was whether a tunnel under the school would undermine a $334 million bond measure passed in 2008 by Beverly Hills voters to modernize the campus.

Among other things, the school plan calls for three levels of subterranean parking, according to Korbatov and other speakers, who said the tunneling would make this impossible. They’re pressing for an alternative route down Santa Monica Boulevard, which also would require further analysis because it sits directly above a seismic fault.

Yaroslavsky, in proposing further study, said he did not believe the school garage plan and the subway tunnel were mutually exclusive. “I’m going to take a very hard and objective look at this,” he said. He suggested that the residents of Beverly Hills do the same: “I would encourage you to work with us and keep an open mind.”

Specifically, Yaroslavsky is asking the Metro staff to explore a variation on the so-called Constellation Station Option that would avoid going under the historic high school building. He also wants a full exploration of the potential risks of having a subway line and station under Santa Monica Boulevard, on top of a seismic fault.

At the heart of the controversy is a Metro staff recommendation for a 9-mile extension of the Purple Line, which would run from Western and Wilshire to the VA Hospital in Westwood. The staff report leaves open where the line’s Century City station should be located–including both the option that goes down Santa Monica Boulevard and the option that goes under Beverly Hills High School.

But many in the city are adamantly opposed to any alternative that includes the high school.

“Beverly Hills residents do not want tunneling when there’s a viable alternative,” Korbatov said.

The full Metro Board of Directors will consider Yaroslavsky’s motion at its October 28 meeting. That’s when the board also will take up the Metro staff’s recommendation for the subway’s “locally preferred alternative” route.

Whichever route the board adopts will receive intensive study during the project’s final environmental review process. It also will help place the Westside Subway project in line for federal funding consideration in fiscal 2012.

Building the subway, which has a $4.2 billion price tag under the staff-recommended route, will require federal dollars along with revenues from Measure R, the half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2008.

Posted 10/20/10