Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy transportation projects worldwide.

L.A. Subway Heads Closer to the Sea
The dirt’s really flying in Los Angeles, where George Takei helped the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority launch work on the Downtown Connector subway tunnel earlier this month.

Chances are that L.A. Metro might call on him again on Nov. 7th, when it breaks ground on a new four-mile extension of the Purple Line subway that will take the line under Wilshire Boulevard through the Miracle Mile district and just into Beverly Hills. Streetsblog LA noted the groundbreaking date in a recent L.A. transportation news roundup.

Construction of the Purple Line extension was assured in May when the Federal Transit Administration and Metro announced a full funding grant agreement for the subway’s $2.927 billion construction cost. $1.25 billion of that will come from an FTA grant, and $856 million will be in the form of low-interest federal loans. The remaining $821 million will come from Measure R, a 30-year half-cent sales tax that funds transportation projects and operations.

The extension will bring the Purple Line to Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards, just inside the city of Beverly Hills, in 2023. The route of the full nine-mile extension to Westwood Veterans Administration Hospital has been the subject of controversy, as Beverly Hills residents have fought to have the extension’s second phase routed away from Beverly Hills High School, which it must tunnel under in order to reach a planned station in Century City. The residents lost their lawsuit in state court, but two suits against the federal government for funding the subway extension have yet to be decided.

The second phase won’t open until 2026 at the earliest, and maybe not even then, for funding for it has not yet been nailed down — Measure R would have to be extended in order to pay for the local share of the cost, for starters.

City officials in Santa Monica, just west of Westwood, still hope for a complete “Subway to the Sea” along Wilshire, as Santa Monica Next noted in its report on the funding agreement. Whether that finally happens remains an open question for now.

London to Join Club of Cities with 24/7 Metro Service
Just in time for next year’s Rugby World Cup, Londoners will be able to ride the Underground all night long on selected lines.

Global Rail News reports that London Underground will launch a new “Night Tube” network on Sept. 12, 2015. The all-night trains will operate on the Jubilee and Victoria lines along with most of the Piccadilly, Central and Northern lines. Trains will operate at 10-minute headways (six trains per hour) on most lines and at seven- to eight-minute intervals (12 trains per hour) on the Northern Line.

The move is in response to rising demand for late-night transportation in London. “Already over half a million Londoners use the Tube after 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and the introduction of the Night Tube, which will cut journey times and open up new possibilities across the night time economy, is a historic step in our modernization of the Underground,” London Underground Managing Director Mike Brown told GRN.

A study commissioned by LU estimates that the overnight Tube service will stimulate the local economy to the tune of £360 million ($579.12 million U.S.). The agency is pursuing sponsorship opportunities to defray the cost of providing the service. The introduction of Night Tube service will mark the first time trains have operated round the clock on London’s subway system since the world’s first subway opened in 1863.

Mauritius to Build Light Metro Along Abandoned Railway Route
The island nation of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 km (1,200 miles) off Africa’s southeast coast, has named a contractor to build a 37-km (23-mile) light-rail rapid transit line connecting the country’s capital and largest city, Port Louis, with the town of Curepipe in Mauritius’ interior, Railway Gazette International reports.

The line, known locally as “métro leger,” will be the first rail service on the main island of Mauritius since the Mauritius Government Railways shut down in 1964. The new line, which will operate along a former state railway route, will have 20 stations, some of which will be hubs for feeder bus services.

A consortium of Afcons Infrastructure, an Indian construction firm, and CAF of France will build the line. Original estimates placed the cost of construction at $862 million; a revised estimate lowered that figure to $786 million, but a total of $850 million in financing will be provided. Of that figure, $600 million will come from low-interest loans from the Indian government. The remaining $250 million will be raised on the local market.

About 1.2 million of Mauritius’ 1.3 million citizens live on the island of Mauritius itself; Port Louis has a population of 151,000, and a little more than 41 percent of the population lives in urban areas, according to CIA World Factbook data. The new light metro line will serve a densely developed corridor and is intended to reduce congestion on local arterial roads, with trains operating every five minutes at peak travel times. The line is scheduled to go into service in October 2018. Planning for the line began in 2012 with significant support from Singapore government agencies. The government says the light metro line will cost no more to operate than the existing bus service in the corridor.

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Next City contributor Sandy Smith is the home and real estate editor at Philadelphia magazine. Over the years, his work has appeared in Hidden City Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local and regional publications. His interest in cities stretches back to his youth in Kansas City, and his career in journalism and media relations extends back that far as well.

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