Beverly Hills officials, sensing that a subway to the sea is inevitable, want to ensure the train doesn't pass them by.
They are preparing to select a route and two station locations to best serve residents, as well as business owners and their employees.
It doesn't seem to matter that the city has little say over the path of the proposed 13-mile subway that would travel between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Or that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which would design, build and operate the subway, is still at least a year or two away from picking the route.
Forget, too, that no money has been set aside for the $5-billion project. Or that using federal funds to tunnel under Wilshire Boulevard still is illegal.
Beverly Hills residents, some of whom once opposed a subway, may be set to endorse a Wilshire Boulevard route from Western Avenue that would include one station at La Cienega Boulevard, and another between Beverly and Rodeo drives.
At community meetings, city leaders have confronted residents' fears of subway crime and potential terrorism. They warn naysayers that, without a subway, traffic on the Westside will only get worse.
"There is an incredible sea change of attitude from resistance to support for the subway," said Allan Alexander, a former Beverly Hills mayor who co-chairs the city's mass transit panel.
Mayor Steve Webb is leading the charge.
He's trying to put Beverly Hills in the best position to lobby federal, state and local officials for the money needed to build the rail line and to make sure it goes through his city.
Webb directed Alexander's subway study committee to "determine what's in our best interest."
The subway study committee's tentative endorsement of the route through the city is to be finalized next month and sent to the City Council for consideration at its January meeting.
A consultant hired by Beverly Hills said Wilshire Boulevard was chosen because it is surrounded by high-density residential and commercial development. It is the county's most heavily traveled transit corridor, according to the MTA.
The committee considered but rejected a route along Santa Monica Boulevard from the subway's Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue station.
Last year, during his campaign for Los Angeles mayor, then-City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa promised to restart the Westside subway project -- more than two decades after it had been derailed.
