Subways

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.

If enthusiasm can get a subway built, the long-sought underground rail line from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific gained a modicum of momentum Thursday after a day-long meeting of leaders focused on getting the $7-billion project built after decades of inaction, study and lots of, well, talk.

Straphangers in New York now have an extra layer of security: police officers armed with submachine guns and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs. Five or six teams, made up of six police officers and a dog, will patrol heavily used subway stations and lines as part of Operation TORCH (Transit Operational Response With Canine and Heavy Weapons). "We're doing everything that we reasonably can to prevent an attack," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said last week.

In hindsight, jumping in front of an oncoming subway train may not have been the smartest move Wesley Autrey has ever made. "It's all hitting me now," Autrey said Wednesday, a day after he saved the life of a young man who had fallen down onto the tracks by pushing him into a gap between the rails. "I'm looking, and these trains are coming in now.... 'Wow, you did something pretty stupid.'

A man's daring rescue of a film student who fell onto the subway tracks earned him the title "the hero of Harlem" on Thursday, plus $10,000 from Donald Trump and a trip to Disney World. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg bestowed the title upon Wesley Autrey as he presented the 50-year-old construction worker with the city's highest award for civic achievement and called him "a great man -- a man who makes us all proud to be New Yorkers." Past recipients of the Bronze Medallion have included Gen.

At least four subway passengers either touched or stepped on six ounces of mercury that a man dropped onto a downtown L.A. subway platform, with one commuter finally alerting authorities about the spill eight hours after it occurred. Among those exposed to the mercury was a woman who lives in downtown Los Angeles. She got the mercury on her red house slippers minutes after the man dropped it, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Det. Danny Regalado.

Two decades ago, Rep. Henry A. Waxman wrote into law a ban on the use of federal funds to build a subway tunnel in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, worried that construction could trigger an underground gas explosion. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Democrat -- now convinced that new technology could make drilling safe -- persuaded the House to repeal his 1985 law, removing a major political obstacle to extending the line to the Westside. The one-page bill passed on a voice vote.

As Los Angeles transit officials pour millions of dollars into cameras and other high-tech security devices in the wake of 9/11, one major security gap persists: No one is stationed underground to help subway passengers in a crisis. Unlike most U.S. subways, Los Angeles' works on the honor system. There are no gates to pass through, no turnstiles that open when a fare is paid and no attendants -- let alone police officers -- stationed on the platforms.

A man caught on camera spilling mercury on a downtown subway platform has been sentenced to 90 days in jail, officials said. Armando Bustamante Miranda, 27, was also ordered to serve three years on probation and stay away from Metropolitan Transportation Authority facilities. Miranda pleaded no contest Wednesday to releasing a harmful substance in a public area, Deputy City Atty. Patty Bilgin said. Miranda was shown on a Dec.

The accident happened in China's information capital, on a new subway line being built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But it took rescue workers at least eight hours last week to arrive on the scene where six migrant workers were trapped in a tunnel collapse. There were no survivors. The cave-in and delayed rescue Wednesday have the potential to seriously embarrass the Chinese government.