Subways

Re "Border Tunnel Is Called 'Amazing,' " Jan. 27 It seems to me that the drug cartels are doing such a sophisticated job of digging tunnels into the U.S. from Mexico that they ought to be offered a contract to build subways under Los Angeles. GERSTEN SCHACHNE Northridge

Re "Video paints grim subway scenario," May 7 The video by activists opposed to tunneling under Beverly Hills High School for the Westside subway extension raises issues that do indeed need to be applied to the school. Abandoned oil wells are not exclusive to Beverly Hills; they litter Los Angeles. The existing subway lines and their tunneling avoided setting off an explosion, and it should be the same with the planned extension. The 1985 Ross Dress for Less store explosion occurred without subway tunneling.

Today marks the opening of the first 4.4-mile segment of the Metro Red Line, which runs from Union Station to MacArthur Park. Here is a look at some of the project's problems and milestones during the past two decades: 1973: Councilman Tom Bradley, in his bid for mayor, promises voters a transit system. 1974: Proposition 5, allowing use of highway funds for public transit, is enacted by voters. 1975: State, local and federal officials begin planning the first segment of Metro Rail.

"Here we are - no, I mean there we were… Flash! The distant shipping in the Thames is gone. Whirr!… Dustheaps, market gardens, and waste grounds. Rattle!...Shock!...Bur-r-r-r! The tunnel…I am… flying for Folkestone…Bang!… Everything is flying. " -- "A Flight," by Charles Dickens, describing a rail trip from London in the journal "Household Words," 1851 :: Who knew that Charles Dickens, master scribe who brought us Scrooge, Copperfield and tale upon cautionary tale of hard 19th century life, was a transit aficionado with a story to tell traffic-snarled Angelenos about their plight?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to fast-track the long-stalled Westside subway faced a challenge Tuesday when a bipartisan group of congressional representatives said the current plan is unlikely to bring immediate federal funding to L.A. County. Villaraigosa has been pushing to have the subway completed in 10 years -- more than 15 years earlier than under current estimates. At his urging, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed to submit the subway expansion, as well as a plan to build a light-rail through downtown, as the county's two projects to compete for a share of a national pool of federal funding.

According to a timetable set by transportation officials overseeing Measure R, one of the most significant projects to speed travel on Los Angeles' Westside -- the "Subway to the Sea" -- is set to go very, very slowly. The proposed rail line doesn't figure to pass engineering and environmental muster until 2013, just in time to see its biggest booster, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, leave office if elected to a second term.

Robert Kiley, the New Yorker hired to turn around London's struggling subway, was fired from the system's governing body Tuesday for opposing government plans to partly privatize the network. Transportation Secretary Stephen Byers said Kiley had been removed as chairman and board member of the London Regional Transport, which oversees the London Underground.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he remained hopeful that construction of the subway-to-the-sea could begin by 2011 now that a federal ban on funding for the project is about to be lifted. The repeal was included in a $516-billion appropriation that was sent Wednesday to the White House. President Bush is expected to sign the bill, which also includes money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two firebombs exploded on subway trains in north London on Monday, and a search for other incendiary devices closed the system for more than three hours, a week after an IRA railway blast severely disrupted commuter travel. No injuries were reported from the two explosions or a third pocket-sized bomb found smoldering in a subway car.

The state's workplace protection agency said Monday that it has cited a Metro Rail subway construction firm for three serious violations of California tunnel safety rules that endangered the lives of underground workers in Studio City.

Re "Subway extension runs into Westside roadblock," April 27 When I lived in Mexico City during the 1985 magnitude 8.0 earthquake, I witnessed epic destruction. Despite the severity of the damage inflicted by the temblor, the subway system was virtually unaffected. The trains resumed normal operations shortly after inspection. Beverly Hills leaders need to be fully informed by geological experts and transportation engineers as to any actual risks to the school buildings before taking a hard-line stand.

Los Angeles County transportation officials set the stage Thursday for a showdown with Beverly Hills leaders over a small portion of the much-anticipated Westside subway extension. Officials on Thursday certified environmental documents for the entire $5.6-billion project, moving a step closer to construction of nine miles of rail that would mostly run underneath Wilshire Boulevard. But the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board only formally approved the first 3.9 miles of the project — as far west as La Cienega Boulevard — because of a request for a hearing from the city of Beverly Hills, where many school officials and city leaders hope to derail efforts to build part of the line underneath Beverly Hills High School.

Re "Clear the tracks, Beverly Hills," Editorial, April 21 Ever since Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) prevented our subway from being finished by pushing though a ban on federal funds for tunneling under Wilshire Boulevard on the Westside, we have lost our chance to have an efficient way of getting around our city. New York has one of the most efficient transportation systems in our country, and yet we who live and work in Los Angeles continue to wait for our subway to be finished.

New York --- Twenty-six potential first-round picks are in town this week for Thursday's opening round of the NFL draft. They're being shuttled around the city, meeting with kids, stopping by hospitals and the New York Stock Exchange, and, in the case of Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III, checking out a food sculpture of himself. Let him explain. "Subway made a statue out of barbecue chicken for me," he said. "Some people were like, 'Oh my God, tear it down!' But I enjoy a good laugh, and it was a good laugh.

The "Subway to the Sea": By now the words have an almost mythical ring to them, with the Westside extension of L.A.'s subway system so long delayed and so much desired that it has almost come to seem like the stuff of legend, akin to the Stairway to Heaven or the Low Road to Loch Lomond. Yet now that the funding to build the line is in place -- if not to get it all the way to the sea, at least to run it as far as Westwood -- and it's finally poised to become a reality, the city of Beverly Hills is putting up costly and pointless roadblocks.

It's hardly where you'd expect to find such news, but an environmental impact statement just issued by the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the Purple Line subway contains an ominous report on the status of the arts in Los Angeles. According to the document, before the transportation agency begins digging tunnels through the tar-and-fossil-filled veins of San Pedro sand that lie beneath Wilshire Boulevard, it will aim an above-ground wrecker's ball at three of L.A.'s most vulnerable arts establishments, leveling the city's only architecture museum along with two other gallery spaces that are part of the city's Museum Row. In the name of a greater good - extending the subway down Wilshire Boulevard to Westwood and, someday, the ocean - the buildings that house the A+D architecture museum and the Edward Cella Art+Architecture and Steve Turner Contemporary galleries will all be razed.

The body of a man was discovered on the subway tracks Wednesday night at the Hollywood and Vine station of the Metro Red Line, authorities said. The body was discovered about 7:30 p.m., said David Ortiz, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The man appeared to have walked off the platform and fallen onto the tracks but did not touch the subway's electric rail, according to spokeswoman Gale Anderson with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The man also was not struck by a train, Anderson said.

The Metrolink commuter railroad held a safety workshop Tuesday for officials responsible for overseeing transportation agencies that operate buses, trains, subways and light rail lines throughout the region. The one-day program at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles brought together federal and state safety experts, transportation agency executives and members of transportation commissions in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. The program included presentations by National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer Downey, who now serves on the Washington Metro board of directors.

The restaurant industry's royal line of succession has shifted, with Wendy's usurping Burger King as the second-largest burger chain, in sales, behind McDonald's. In its annual ranking of U.S. restaurants, research group Technomic placed McDonald's — with its 5.5% boost in sales in 2011 to $34.2 billion — first among the nation's 500 largest eatery chains. Next came two non-burger chains: Subway and Starbucks, each of which posted a 7.5% sales gain. Wendy's placed fourth, with $8.5 billion in sales, followed by Burger King's $8.4 billion.