Tunnel Visionaries

Guido Eyzaguirre showed up at a mountain near Universal City with a difficult task confronting him.

He was to convert the rocky ground into tunnels for the new Los Angeles subway. So he and his crew of 40 commenced digging, then poured concrete and eventually installed rails.

This summer, after about four years of work, Guido and his crew will be able to appreciate the payoff from their labors--commuters getting from Universal City to Hollywood or downtown Los Angeles in a matter of minutes.

“My job? Digging, getting dirty. It’s a lousy job,” he said, joking.

Eyzaguirre’s employer, Jacobs-Hatch Mott McDonald, was hired by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to dig the tunnels and install about six miles of rail from North Hollywood to Hollywood.

“It was tough. We were used to spending many hours inside dark tunnels,” said Eyzaguirre, 49. “You have concrete mixers, equipment and 40 people working in a very tight space. It’s very easy to get hurt. Luckily, nobody [in his group] got hurt, but we had to be very careful anyway.

“You have to make sure your people can breathe,” he added. “You become claustrophobic after a while.”

He has developed an appreciation for the underground as a result of his many years in the business, he said. If an earthquake hits Los Angeles, he cannot think of a safer place than underground, he said.

“Once danger is over, if people are inside the tunnels, we can always escort them out,” he said. “Everything is shaking above ground.”