Beverly Hills schools have been in a battle with Metro over its plans to tunnel under the famous 90210 high school as part of the “Westside Subway Extension.”

As our Patrick Range McDonald reported in an LA Weekly cover story, the line has essentially been bent from a more straight shot down Santa Monica Boulevard to coincide with plans by a friend-of-L.A.-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to build a skyscraper on “sleepy” Constellation Boulevard. And that would put the subway and tunneling under Beverly Hills High.

This week Metro, where Villaraigosa holds much sway, issued a report stating that seismic activity begs it to move the subway stop to Constellation. The school district is pissed:

Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) president Lisa Korbatov accused Metro of sitting on seismic data at a time when the schools had been asking for it.

She says …

The dot to the south is the Constellation Station.; Credit: Metro

The dot to the south is the Constellation Station.; Credit: Metro

… Metro has opened a veritable Pandora's Box that potentially impacts many dozens of existing buildings and future projects in the region, including Beverly Hills High School, future station locations for the Westside Subway Extension as well as currently entitled development projects. It is unfathomable that Metro has had this important seismic data available for such a long time without providing it to the BHUSD or other interested parties in the purported earthquake zone.

Much of the data presented today has been available for almost a year. The fact that Metro held it for so long poses many questions …

According to a summary of Metro's report, it proves …

… that a subway station in Century City should be built under the intersection of Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars to avoid two earthquake faults in the area.

Metro says that tunneling under the high school won't threatened the buildings above. Looks like no one is stopping this train. Guess we'll see if it all holds up in the end.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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