HOLLYWOOD : MTA to Resume Tunneling Today on Subway Project

Nearly five months after construction of Los Angeles’ subway was halted because of sinkage in Hollywood, tunneling was set to resume early today, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Friday.

Work was to resume on only one of the two tunnels. An MTA spokesman said the agency wants to see how tunneling proceeds on the north tunnel before resuming work on the south one.

Tunneling was halted Aug. 18 after portions of Hollywood Boulevard sank as much as 10 inches. The Federal Transit Administration on Oct. 5 withheld money for the project but restored funding Nov. 10 after the MTA agreed to improvements in construction quality and safety.

“We will proceed with extreme vigilance to avoid the problems of the past,” said county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the MTA board chairman.

John J. Adams, MTA interim executive officer, said he was confident that the new safeguards will minimize subsidence on Hollywood Boulevard, but said that if ground settles three-quarters of an inch in front of the tunneling machine or 1 1/2 inches behind the machine, tunneling will be halted immediately.

In a related development, Mayor Richard Riordan announced the appointment of Carol E. Schatz, senior vice president of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles, to replace Stan Sanders on the MTA board.

The mayor also named San Fernando Valley Councilman Hal Bernson as his first alternate on the MTA board and Hollywood Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg as an alternate to MTA board member Mel Wilson.