New Purple Line Metro Opens in Los Angeles

Los Angeles finally pushed the subway farther west on Friday — and for this city, that is a much bigger deal than “three new stations” makes it sound. Metro opened Section 1 of the D Line extension, adding stops at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax, and Wilshire/La Cienega after more than a decade of construction. The payoff is simple: a corridor that used to mean traffic, buses, and patience now has a fast underground option into downtown. And because this is Wilshire Boulevard, the change lands in one of the most crowded, most visited parts of the city. ### What opened, exactly? This is the first operating chunk of the long-planned westward extension of the former Purple Line, now called the D Line. The new section runs 3.92 miles beyond the old Koreatown terminus and adds three underground stations along Mid-Wilshire, reaching the eastern edge of Beverly Hills. Metro began passenger service on Friday, May 8, 2026, after a morning opening event with city and county leaders. ### Why do these three stops matter? Because they are not random infill stops. Wilshire/Fairfax drops rail service next to Museum Row, LACMA, the Academy Museum, the La Brea Tar Pits, and a short hop from The Grove and Farmers Market. Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/La Cienega serve dense residential blocks, job centers, and major east-west bus connections. Basically, Metro did not just add stations — it tunneled into one of the busiest visitor and commuter corridors in the region. (metro.net) ### How much faster is it? The headline number is roughly 20 to 21 minutes from Union Station to Wilshire/La Cienega. That is the kind of travel-time promise Los Angeles riders almost never get on the street, because Wilshire traffic can swing wildly by time of day, weather, crashes, or events. A Beverly Hills-to-Union Station trip is now in the low-20-minute range, which turns a cross-city errand into something you can actually plan around. (metro.net) ### Why did this take so long? Heavy-rail subway construction under Wilshire was always going to be the hard version of the job. Metro broke ground on Section 1 in 2014. The line had to be tunneled under dense neighborhoods and major institutions, with giant tunnel-boring machines and years of utility work, traffic changes, and station excavation. What opened this week is the visible end of a project Angelenos have been living around for 12 years. (foxla.com) ### Is this the whole Purple Line project? No — this is just Section 1 of a much larger build. The full D Line extension is about 9 miles in three sections and is supposed to keep pushing west through Beverly Hills to Century City, Westwood/UCLA, and the VA Hospital. That matters because the real strategic goal is not Mid-Wilshire alone. It is a one-seat subway ride from downtown to the Westside’s biggest job, school, and medical hubs. (dailynews.com) ### When do UCLA and Westwood get service? That is still the unresolved part. Recent coverage and Metro materials point to the remaining sections opening before the 2028 Olympics, with late 2027 often used as the working target. But those dates have shifted before, so the safe read is this: the westward tunnel is no longer theoretical, but the full downtown-to-Westwood promise is not here yet. (metro.net) ### Why does this matter beyond transit nerds? Because Wilshire is one of the few corridors in Los Angeles where rail can change daily behavior at scale. The line connects apartments, museums, offices, retail, and tourist destinations that already generate all-day demand. In a city where transit projects often feel abstract until they open, this one is easy to understand — fewer car trips on a famously clogged boulevard, and a much more usable spine for the rest of the Metro system. (foxla.com) ### Bottom line This is not the finish line. But it is the first moment the Westside subway stops being a promise and starts being a thing people can actually ride. For Los Angeles, that is the real milestone. (metro.net)