Wilshire street closures wrap up six weeks ahead of schedule

Miracle Mile drivers frazzled by recent weekend street closures along Wilshire Boulevard can breathe a sigh of relief—or just enjoy a detour-less drive.

As City News Service (via My News LA) reports, above-ground work on the future Wilshire/La Brea Purple Line station has come to an end six weeks ahead of schedule. The street closures, which started in June and were expected to last 22 weeks, were necessary for initial development of the subway station.

But Metro contractors have fully excavated the site and added concrete decking so that construction can continue underground.

Metro Purple Line Wilshire/La Brea station under construction. Purple Line will extend from Koreatown to Beverly Hills to UCLA. It will take almost a decade to construct at least three new underground subway stations. Stations on Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/La Cienega, and Wilshire/Fairfax, which is right across from LACMA (Los Angeles Museum of Arts), are projected to open in 2023. #metropurpleline #metropurplelineextension #PurpleLineExtension #purplelineext

A photo posted by John Park (@captaincottontail) on Jan 1, 2016 at 8:00pm PST

The Wilshire/La Brea station is one of three stops under construction right now along the first phase of the Purple Line’s planned extension to Westwood. Once complete, the train—which currently ends its westward journey at Wilshire/Western—will take passengers as far as La Cienega. Eventually, the train will travel all the way to Westwood.

Work on the first phase of the Purple Line extension is expected to wrap up by 2022, with Metro aiming to open the extended route to passengers in 2023.

• Subway Work Will Shut Down Wilshire Boulevard For 22 Weekends This Summer [Curbed LA]
• Your Guide to Surviving the Upcoming Street Closures on Wilshire [Curbed LA]
• The first piece of the Purple Line subway extension was just installed [Curbed LA]
• Here’s the schedule for work on the Purple Line to La Cienega [Curbed LA]