LOS ANGELES _ Hundreds of Beverly Hills students, teachers and parents gathered in Will Rogers Memorial Park on Friday morning to protest the route of the Westside subway, which is slated to run beneath the city's high school.
Students who received a signed permission slip from their parents left the district's five schools Friday morning and arrived on more than a dozen school buses.
Some students as young as 6 clutched bag lunches and juice boxes. Others held signs that read, "President Trump, you can fix it!" and "Move over, Metro."
The 2.59-mile subway route is the second of three extensions planned to connect the subway's current terminus in Koreatown and West Los Angeles. The $2.53 billion route has $1.5 billion in funding from federal officials and the remainder is funded through local sales taxes.
Students called on President Donald Trump to order a change in the route or withdraw the project's federal funding, saying tunneling beneath the high school could spark a methane explosion at one of the dozens of oil wells on campus.
"I should not constantly be terrified of an explosion ... or that my health could be jeopardized, simply by being at school," said Amanda Khodabash, 16, a senior at Beverly Hills High School.
Metro spokesman Dave Sotero said the agency has surveyed the campus using state records, historic and aerial photos, and magnetic technology that detects subterranean metal, including any unmapped wells.
"We appreciate and respect the passion and civic engagement of the high school students," Sotero said. "Safety is our No. 1 priority."
Tunneling on the 2.59-mile extension is slated to begin next summer and last about 18 months, Sotero said. The tunneling machine will be beneath the high school for one to two months, he said.
Metro's studies have shown that the chosen station location near Constellation Boulevard in Century City, which would involve tunneling beneath the high school, would have higher ridership than a station on nearby Santa Monica Boulevard, the route supported by Beverly Hills activists.
Senior Sean Toobi, 17, the student representative for the Beverly Hills school district, helped organize the protest. He said students support the subway, but don't want it under their campus.
"What are Metro's priorities?" Toobi asked. "Is it ridership and revenue, or the health and safety of the community?"
Critics have called the students NIMBYs, shorthand for "Not In My Backyard."
"Of course we have that stigma against us," Toobi said. "We're Beverly Hills. But we're just like any other high school."
Sotero said the environmental study conducted over five years found no evidence that emissions from tunneling would exceed Air Quality Management District thresholds.
