Metro wins $100M in federal funding for Westside subway extension

Elon Musk’s plan to build a high-speed vehicle transport tunnel on the Westside may have gotten derailed but a more traditional subterranean transportation plan to ease traffic in Los Angeles is chugging along.

The federal government has approved $100 million in funding to complete the third and final portion of the Purple Line subway extension on the Westside, Metro announced this week.

The third leg of the Purple Line will extend nine miles through Century City and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital campus in Westwood. It will also add seven new stations.

The grant is represents a small fraction of the $1.3 billion Metro is seeking for the third phase of the extension, Curbed reported. The agency said it expects to receive the full funding early next year.

Overall, the third section is estimated to cost $3.5 billion to complete. Metro has already won $1.25 billion from the federal government for the first segment of the extension, which will stretch from Wilshire/Western to Wilshire/La Cienega.

Once completed, it would be the first Metro line to reach into Westwood. It would also reduce travel time between Downtown and Westwood to about 25 minutes.

While opposition to the Purple Line extension has been vocal, it hasn’t reached the levels Elon Musk and his Boring Company have faced.

Hawthorne-based Boring Co. announced it would be dropping its plan for a test tunnel beneath Sepulveda Boulevard earlier this week, after a contentious battle with a coalition of neighborhood groups opposing development of the high-speed tunnel. [Curbed] — Natalie Hoberman