LA Metro resumes rail service on portion of D Line – NBC Los Angeles

After a 70-day pause for construction, Metro on Saturday reopened the westernmost stretch of its D (Purple) Line with full rail service resuming between Union Station and Koreatown.

The transit agency implemented a temporary closure on May 17 to allow crews to complete critical connections as part of the D Line Extension Project. Rail service resumed at 4 a.m. Saturday.

Riders will once again be able to ride Metro to the Wilshire/Vermont, Wilshire/Normandie and Wilshire/Western stations.

During the closure, Metro provided shuttle bus service while crews worked to connect all rail communication and power systems between the current subway line and the extensions.

“We know that these closures are inconvenient for our riders,” Metro Board Chair and Whittier Councilman Fernando Dutra said during Metro’s Board of Directors meeting Thursday.

“No one ever wants to close a part of our system, but in cases like these complicated projects, it’s a lot better to close the system in the short term and get everything done all at once rather than piecemeal it and extend it over a longer period of time.”

The D Line Subway Extension is being constructed as three separate projects, which will add nine miles of underground rail and create seven new stations.

Phase 1 is expected to open in the fall, extending the D Line from the Wilshire/Western station in Koreatown through Beverly Hills. New stations will open at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.

The Wilshire/La Cienega station will give Beverly Hills its first passenger rail service since Sept. 26, 1954, when service on the Pacific Electric Railway’s Hollywood Line ended.

The D Line will eventually extend through Century City and end near the VA campus in West Los Angeles.

The extension project is part of Metro’s Twenty-Eight by ’28 initiative to bolster public transportation ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The goal of the project is to complete 28 transportation infrastructure projects before the start of the 2028 Summer Olympics on July 14, 2028.