April 20, 2010 --The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is hosting a meeting this evening at the Main Library on the proposed Westside Subway Extension. The Metro Purple Line subway currently extends from Downtown Los Angeles to the Wilshire/Western stop in the Mid-Wilshire district. There are five options proposed for extending the subway, including two that would stretch into Santa Monica.

Metro last year committed $4.2 billion in local and federal funding toward the extension project. The local money would come from the fund created by Measure R, the half-cent County sales tax approved by voters in 2008. That money would only cover two options to extend the subway to Westwood.

There are two options to extend the line to Santa Monica along Wilshire Boulevard that would require significantly more money.

One option has the line going through West Hollywood and the other does not. The non-West Hollywood version has an estimated price tag of $6.1 billion and the West Hollywood version would cost at least $9 billion.

The so-called Subway to the Sea has long been a dream for public transportation advocates. City Council member Kevin McKeown mentioned it as an additional public transportation need in a February e-mail to The Lookout News regarding the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority’s approval of the $1.5 billion light rail line connecting Culver City to Santa Monica.

"The eventual Subway to the Sea will be far from redundant," he wrote. "It will help remedy many decades of insufficient regional transit planning.”

Tonight’s session will take place in the multi-purpose room. It will begin with an open house at 6 p.m., followed by a presentation at 6:15 p.m. There will be an opportunity for public comment at 7:15 p.m.
For more information on the subway extension plan, go to www.metro.net/projects/westside/