MTA Begins Testing of Hollywood Red Line

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will begin running a full schedule of test trains today as a prelude to opening the Metro Rail subway to Hollywood in June.

The test trains will run the full 11.1-mile route from Union Station to the Hollywood/Vine station, the last of five new subway stations scheduled to open to the public on June 12.

The 4.6-mile addition to the Red Line subway starts at the Wilshire/Vermont station and travels north beneath Vermont Avenue before heading west under Hollywood Boulevard.

The new stations on Vermont are at Beverly, Santa Monica and Sunset boulevards. The Hollywood Boulevard stations are at Western Avenue and near Vine Street.

Subway passengers from downtown Los Angeles will be allowed to ride on the Hollywood-bound trains only as far as the Wilshire/Vermont station before exiting the train. If they want to continue to Wilshire/Western, they will have to change trains at that station.

The Red Line subway will continue to run every five minutes during peak hours between Wilshire/Vermont and downtown. With the addition of the Hollywood test trains, the subway will run every six minutes during off-peak daytime hours. Nighttime service is every 20 minutes.

But the new test schedule will mean fewer trains per hour to the present end of the line at the Wilshire/Western station. Trains will run every 10 minutes to and from that station during peak hours and every 12 minutes during off-peak daytime hours.