L.A.'s Subway Planners Thinking Bigger Is Better

"Metro planners presented West Hollywood with good news on Monday night.

To their own surprise, the proposed subway expansion makes better sense to planners when a Santa Monica Boulevard route is added to the traditionally better-preferred Wilshire Boulevard route.

A crowd of 75 attendees listened in rapture while Long Range Transportation planners explained how a Santa Monica spur running from the current Hollywood/Highland Red Line Station hooking up with a Wilshire line south of West Hollywood would not only increase ridership significantly, but also provides enough in travel time improvements to give Congress reason to fund the subway expansion.

"What was surprising to us," David Mieger, project manager said, "is that adding Santa Monica Boulevard to the Wilshire route, in compliment to one another, it works [from a feasibility, cost and ridership perspective]."

The representatives, who are shepherding through to completion a massive public comment process designed to flesh out Metro's Draft 2008 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), noted that huge increases in new boardings at existing stations, plus projected new boardings in new stations dotting the area, saw the cost per user travel-hour leap to a level of efficiency that would convince the federal government to fund the larger part of a project supposed to cost over $8.5 billion."