New allocation from the FTA for section three of the Metro
has received a new allocation of AUD100 million from the Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) for the third and final section of the Metro Purple Line
Extension Project to Westwood/VA Hospital.
The funding represents the second AUD100million allocation
from the FTA for Section Three since November 2018 and comes from the FTA’s
Fiscal Year 2019 Capital Investment Grants Program that invests in critical
public transportation projects nationwide. The total cost for this section of
the project is AUD3.6 billion. Section Three of the Purple Line Extension will
span 2.56 miles (4.12km) between Century City and Westwood/VA Hospital and will
include two new subway stations. Section Three has already begun some
construction activities, which includes utility relocation work and
preconstruction activities. Both the second and third project sections are
being built by Tutor Perini O&G, a Joint Venture. The entire 9-mile
(14.48km ) line is on track to open by 2027, in time for the 2028 L.A. Olympic
and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.
Tunnelling work has been completed for the first section
between Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/Western by Elsie, Metro’s second TBM for
the first section of the Purple Line Extension. Elsie broke through to
Wilshire/Western Station in Koreatown at 3:57 p.m. on Thursday (June 27),
marking completion of tunnelling works for the first two-mile section of the
project between Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/Western. Elsie was launched six
weeks after Soyeon at Metro’s Wilshire/La Brea station site in the Miracle Mile
area of Wilshire. The name Soyeon is
Korean for “bright” and “beautiful” and was named after female astronaut and
mechanical engineer Yi Soyeon. The name Elsie is a tribute to Elsie Eaves, the
first female to be elected as a member of the American Society of Civil
Engineers.
The TBMs will now be dismantled and trucked back to Metro’s
Wilshire/La Brea construction yard, where they will be reassembled and then
begin digging the two miles toward Wilshire/Fairfax and then Wilshire/La
Cienega stations. Both TBMs are scheduled to reach Wilshire/La Cienega in
Beverly Hills by mid-2020.
The other 1,000 t, 121.92 m (400-feet) long TBM, named
Soyeon, broke through on June 11th . Soyeon was originally lowered
into the ground at Metro’s Wilshire/La Brea station site in the Miracle Mile
area of Wilshire last October. While advancing, the TBM burrowed about 18.29 m
(60 feet) per day. It worked five days per week, 20 hours a day. Section 1 of
the Purple Line Extension is now more than halfway complete and is scheduled to
open in 2023.
Click here and us/41 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit www.metro.net/purplelineext and https://thesource.metro.net. 29/19.
