Timely Tunnel : Digging of 2-Mile Subway Extension to : Hollywood Finished Ahead of Schedule

An tunneling machine bashed through the final section of rock and dirt 45 feet below the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue on Monday, completing the drilling phase of the Metro Red Line’s two-mile extension from MacArthur Park.

The 200-ton machine finished its yearlong job ahead of schedule before an audience of photographers and television crews.

Miners celebrated their accomplishment by emerging from the tunnel and romping down the huge mound of dirt the machine had created.

“The best feeling we have is when we come through the end of a long tunnel, especially when there were no injuries,” miner Dennis Boulton said, holding a commemorative pewter belt buckle.

“This morning is about progress,” Neil Peterson, Los Angeles County Transportation Commission executive director, told construction workers and transportation officials who gathered under the intersection. “It’s about keeping the faith with voters who asked two years ago to put in a rail system as part of a transportation system for the county.”

Then, as the 185-foot-long machine hammered through the rock, Peterson and other transportation officials scurried out of the way.

The $900-million tunnel project is part of the Red Line’s 6.7-mile Segment 2 phase, which will provide a subway link between MacArthur Park and Hollywood. The spur to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, scheduled for completion in 1996, is intended to be a part of a line extending west to Century City.

Tunneling for the Hollywood section--which will travel north beneath Vermont Avenue and swing west under Hollywood Boulevard to Vine Street--will begin next July, officials said.

The subway’s first segment, which runs through downtown Los Angeles from Union Station to MacArthur Park, is scheduled to begin operating in early January.

During the tunneling, mine workers traveled an average of 73 feet a day, which was more than double the rate of previous Red Line projects. Officials said there were no serious injuries during the project.

Two side-by-side, 22-foot-diameter tunnels were created by the mining machine’s cutter, a sharp shield that moves through earth with 6 million pounds of force, powered by hydraulic cylinders. At its deepest, the tunnel is 120 feet below the surface.

The soil is removed on a conveyor belt and carted out of the tunnel in small railroad cars.