After committing to shutting down a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard running through the city of Beverly Hills to speed up subway construction earlier this year, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced that it has completed decking work in the area seven months ahead of schedule.

Back in April, Metro and local officials hammered out a plan to fully shut down the street in order to take advantage of the drastically reduced traffic activity in the area due to the region's stay-at-home orders following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the LA Metro had planned to conduct partial closures of the street in question on weekends over a seven month stretch starting in August 2020, but now, three months later, this work has been completed. 

An update published on the Metro website explains: "Metro’s contractor Tutor Perini O & G initially worked two shifts per day over a six-day work week to complete the piling and decking within the allotted time.  To compensate for the recent curfews, the contractor’s field supervision and union craft labor worked seven days per week, with some staff working more than 12 hours per day."

The decking work will allow construction crews to continue to building the subway tubes and stations below ground while street-level users go about their business, a vision supported both by the transportation authority and local business owners who no longer have to endure months of business disruptions as a result. Construction on this section of the city's forthcoming Purple Line extension, recently renamed as the D Line, the second of three planned extensions currently underway, is slated to be completed in 2025. The first section of the extension is slated for a 2023 completion.